YSR Congress party president and Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy has come out with yet another concept of “family doctor,” to take health care facility to the doorsteps of the people.
According to this concept, the government will make it compulsory for the doctors to visit the villages regularly to provide treatment to the needy patients, so that they should not feel lack of medical facility in the rural areas.
Jagan suggested that each mandal headquarters will have at least two primary health centres and each PHC will have at least two doctors. Each doctor will be assigned a few villages and he should compulsorily visit these assigned villages twice a month.
This will help the doctor to get acquaintance with the villagers and he can understand the healthcare needs of the people. He would also have fair knowledge of what kind of diseases those villagers are suffering from.
Whenever a doctor visits a village, he will be accompanied by Arogya Mitra and ASHA workers, along with 104 ambulance service. He would also make compulsory home visits.
“If necessary, he can increase the number of 104 services,” the chief minister said.
He suggested that a village clinic be maintained regularly so that it would help the doctor attending to the patients whenever he goes there.
“Thus, he will be like a family doctor for all the patients, since he will have a fair knowledge of the patients and their needs in every village,” Jagan said.
The chief minister directed that the medical and health department provide necessary infrastructure to this “family doctor” concept. The facilities include availability of ambulances, medicines and other equipment required for treatment.
“The doctors should record the health condition of every patient in the health card provided to him from time to time. This will help the patient when he is referred to a bigger hospital for better treatment,” the chief minister said.
