Punjab mulling to create separate dept for health awareness

Punjab government is considering to form a separate department for health awareness in the state for informing public about the benefits of good health.
Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today asked the Vice Chancellor of the Baba Farid University of Health Sciences to explore the feasibility of constituting such department so that people could be made aware about how to keep a good health through massive awareness campaigns.
These campaigns must be launched at village level also so that people could be benefited from it, Badal said at the annual conference of Indian Medical Association.
He also announced that the state government would annually bear the expenditure of five private practitioners, who are desirous of upgrading their expertise by undergoing training in foreign countries.

These doctors would be selected every year by a committee of officers of the state government, representatives of IMA and VC of Baba Farid University, Badal said.
"We were already sending doctors from the government sector for such courses and now we have decided to extend this facility to the private practitioners also," he added.

The Chief Minister said that the setting up of the Homi Bhabha Cancer Treatment and Research Center at Mullanpur was a right step towards making Punjab a leading state in providing quality treatment to the cancer patients across the country.
He further said that the state government had also initiated a cashless treatment scheme for the cancer patients besides making efforts to provide subsidized medicines to them.

He exhorted the doctors to serve the people far more zealously and sincerely by dedicating at least one day in a week for the service of poor and needy.
Badal also urged the leading private practitioners to adopt a cluster of villages around their hospitals to treat the people free of cost.