No dearth of funds for child heart operations-Rosaiah

The Finance and Medical and Health Minister Mr. K. Rosaiah said that the there was no dearth of funds for free pediatric heart surgeries programme but shortage of expert doctors and technicians was crippling it to some extent. He said that the Government was ready to take all the good suggestions from anybody in this regard and assured the member that a meeting with all concerned would be held very soon.

The Minister was replying to a debate on ‘heart operations to the children in the State’ raised under rule 304 by Congress member Dr. S. Sailajanath and others in the Assembly today. He said that from 7 August 2004 when the issue came to the notice of the Government, steps had been taken very quickly and accordingly the medical and health department conducted screening tests in two phases. In the first phase a total number of 7553 children had been screened and 6308 children detected suffering from heart diseases. In the second phase of screening 6210 children had been identified, he said. Among the total identified 11710 children so far surreys were conducted to 4410 and another 2016 interventions had been performed. So far the Government spent Rs.12 cores on surgeries he informed the members.

He said that in the present fiscal only Rs.8 crores had been allocated in the budget for child heart operations but spent around Rs. 12 crores. In the next budget Rs. 25 crores were allocated keeping the need in view. He said that the Government would be ready to spend even more if need be. He refuted the opposition allegations that the Government was not showing interest in recruiting doctors and in upgrading the teaching hospitals. He said that the Government had been making every possible effort to recruit more and more doctors and technicians needed by offering UGC scale. The efforts he said just started giving results and hoped that the problem would be solved to a large extent in future. Reacting to suggestion made by the BJLP leader Mr. G. Kishan Reddy, the Minister said that he would personally go to airport to invite any if any expert doctor from other State was ready to offer his services. He said pediatric heart surgery programme would continue and measures to prevent it if any would be preferred.