Reforming healthcare system: AAP government to set up patient welfare committees in Delhi hospitals

By Newsgram Staff Writer

To deal with the public grievances on various health and medical issues, Arvind Kejriwal led Aam Aadmi Party today announced plans to set up patient welfare committees at all government hospitals in Delhi.

Under this plan, there will be 38 such committees in the government hospitals which will be headed by the local MLAs of the area. The representatives of the public will get an office space in the hospital premises to address the concerns of the patients.

Elaborating on how these welfare groups will benefit the people, the state Health Minister Satyendra Jain said," The role of the committees will be to deal with day to day public grievances and resolve these issues at local level. Decisions on issues like lack of medicines, cleanliness and treatment will be taken on the spot by these committees."

The patient welfare committees will ensure community participation and monitor functioning of health care facilities, the minister said.

The Health Minister also announced the plans of setting up 10 district committees to monitor the condition of dispensaries and other health programmes in the national capital.

"These district committees will ensure that the dispensaries across the city have all the essential medicines and cater to the medical needs of the public," Jain said, and added that these groups will also look after the health programmes launched for public welfare in the city.

Talking about the state government's immunization programme, Jain said that Delhi government has given de-worming medicines to 35 lakh students (1 to 19-years of age) under the immunization programme called Indradhanush Kawach.

"This immunization programme is being held in all parts of the city and the idea is to strengthen it in the coming months. This month we held it at 700-800 centers but we plan to take this number to 1,000. Our target is that 100 per cent kids of the city are immunized," Jain said.