In providing child health facilities, Gorakhpur district moved one step further on Monday with the inauguration of the newly-constructed PICUs (Pediatric Intensive Care Units) at Jangal Kauria and Chargaon (Khuthan) community health centres.
Both these centres were inaugurated by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath.
These PICUs have been constructed by Hindustan Urvarak & Rasayan Limited (HURL) with the corporate environment responsibility (CER) fund and would benefit five lakh children, including 2.5 lakh residents each of Jangal Kauria and Chargaon.
Speaking on the occasion, the chief minister said that due to the strengthening of health facilities in the state, the death rate was coming down considerably. He added that with strengthening of health facilities, more infant, maternal and other mortality rates would be controlled.
Explaining the importance of PICU at health centres, Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath said that eastern Uttar Pradesh was in the grip of encephalitis for a long time that claimed 50,000 lives of children in four decades between 1977-78 and 2017-18 in the absence of timely treatment.
“The Bharatiya Janata Party government started a programme in 2017-18 to control the disease by enhancing health facilities under which PICUs and mini-PICUs were set up at district hospitals and community health centres. This resulted in controlling deaths due to encephalitis by 96 per cent. Earlier, 1,200 to 1,500 children used to die of the disease while this number has come down to almost zero today,” he said.
The chief minister stressed the importance of focusing on prevention of encephalitis by raising awareness about cleanliness, consumption of pure drinking water, use of toilets, hygiene and vaccination, pointing out that the government was running special campaigns for control of communicable diseases three to four times a year for prevention and awareness. Along with this, health facilities are also being strengthened continuously, he added.
Chief Minister Yogi said that the experience of the efforts made to control encephalitis was very useful in the management of the novel coronavirus as well. “Earlier there was not even a single ICU bed in 36 districts and today there are 7,000 ICU beds for children alone in Uttar Pradesh,” he remarked.
Chief Minister Yogi said that after about 31 years, Hindustan Fertilisers and Chemicals Limited had started production of fertilisers in the closed factory of FCI and was producing to 100 per cent of its capacity, leaving no room for any shortage of fertilisers for farmers.
He said farmers got fertilisers on time even during the COVID-19 period. “Uttar Pradesh as well as Bihar and neighboring states are getting the benefit of this factory,” the chief minister pointed out.
On this occasion, MP Ravikishan Shukla, MLA Fateh Bahadur Singh, Mahendrapal Singh, Divisional Commissioner Ravi Kumar NG, District Magistrate Krishna Karunesh, and GDA Vice-Chairman Mahendra Singh Tanwar were present.