Delhi govt to set up patient welfare committees in hospitals

Delhi government today announced its plans to set up patient welfare committees at all government hospitals to deal with public grievances on various health and medical issues.
According to officials of the health department, the city's government hospitals will have 38 such committees to be headed by MLA of the area who will get an office in the hospital to address patients' grievances.
Health Minister Satyendra Jain said the patient welfare committees will ensure community participation and monitor functioning of health care facilities.
"Their role 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," he said.

The government has also formed 10 district committees, to be chaired by MLAs, to look after dispensary and health related schemes and programmes.
Jain further announced that Delhi Government has given medicines to 35 lakh students (1 to 19-years of age) of the city under the de-worming drive and now it plans to involve students of private schools in the coming months.

"Even students of private schools are having junk food and have irregular food habits. So they will also be included in the de-worming programme. So far they were not included in the programme," Jain said.
A Health department official said immunization programme Indradhanush Kawach was carried out from April 7 to 14.

In the first phase 1,11,613 students and 13,222 pregnant women were immunized and 14,198 ORS, 26,073 zinc tablets, 60,887 vitamin-A tablets were given.
"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.