Wednesday, 15 MAY 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Health secretary R Rajesh Kumar has said that the increasing number of pilgrims in the ongoing Char Dham Yatra has emerged as a challenge. He said the Health department has taken up a target to conduct as many health checkups as possible of people aged above 50 years. He was interacting with a delegation of the Dehradun chapter of Public Relations Society of India (PRSI) at his office in the secretariat on Tuesday. Kumar said that the Health department is providing all facilities including health check-up to the devotees. He said that last year a health check-up of about 7.5 lakh people above 55 years of age was done.
He further informed that the department has deployed 184 doctors in the Yatra this year as compared to 140 last year. A total of 44 specialist doctors have also been deployed in the Yatra this year.
The secretary informed that in view of the lack of super speciality facility on the Yatra route the department has decided to set up a Cath lab in the Government Medical College, Srinagar. He added that the super specialists are being encouraged to provide their services through the ‘You Quote We Pay’ scheme. Kumar said that SOPs related to the Yatra have been issued in a total of 11 languages. These SOPs have been sent to all the State governments and are being distributed to the pilgrims coming on the Yatra in their language. Information about Do’s and Don’ts has been given to pilgrims in the SOP. The Health secretary said that a medical point has been set up for the first time in Janakichatti.
Congratulating the newly appointed Dehradun head of PRSI, Ravi Bijarniya, Kumar said that PRSI has an important role in the field of public relations and It can make an important contribution in giving information about various schemes and programmes for public awareness.
He opined that the organisation should be expanded from the district to the block level. Bijarniya informed that the organisation has 25 branches across the country and in addition to the public relations officers of government departments, personnel from public sector units are also associated with it.
