Kolkata: Bengal government is all set to upgrade all the Primary Health Centers under its jurisdiction to Health Wellness Centres to provide quality treatment to patients.
One of the main purposes of the initiative is to provide basic knowledge on how to prevent various ailments and what should be done when someone is brought to Health Wellness Centres with basic ailments.
Health Wellness Centers will mainly serve as a preventive health care system, the primary objective will be to ensure that people have the basic knowledge on how to stay fit.
These centers will also provide basic treatment so that patients can be cured at the Health Wellness Centers without having to get shifted to district or sub-divisional
hospitals.
According to the sources, there are around 10,300 primary Health Centers across the state which will soon witness a major facelift with the release of funds both by the Center and the state government.
It was learnt that around 1,50,000 Health Wellness Centers would be set up along the length and breadth of the country. The Health
Wellness Centres will have better health infrastructure than what is commonly found at Primary Health Centres.
Bengal government has already started training as many as 171 nurses who will be appointed at these centers. According to a senior government official, if the Health and Wellness Centres have better infrastructure, they could take some pressure off the district hospitals.
It may be mentioned that the district and sub-divisional hospitals in the state often see a huge number of footfall. In many cases, it was found that patients could have been treated at Primary Health Centres.
The state Health department is emphasising on the upgradation of primary health centers so that the basic treatment can be provided at these Health Centers.
Both the Centre and the state government will work together to provide better health infrastructure at Health Wellness Centres which will come up.
It may also be mentioned that the Centre will recruit 9,000 Ayurveda practitioners for the Health Wellness Centers in the next one year. The Centre has also set a target to appoint as around 75,000 Ayurveda practitioners at all the health wellness centers in the next
five years.