GUWAHATI: Stressing on preventive healthcare, the state health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday launched the training module for community health officers (CHOs) in comprehensive primary health care under Ayushman Bharat scheme.
Community health officers are mid-level health officers who provide primary healthcare at the sub-centre level. The minister informed that these CHOs will be appointed in health and wellness centres.
Under this initiative, the basic services of the health sub-centres will be extended to provide comprehensive primary health services in the district which will be known as health and wellness centres. This will include maternal and child health services along with other diagnostic services.
“Around 27 lakh families or 30% of the population is living below the poverty line in Assam, they will be covered under the scheme. It provides for a cover of up to Rs 5 lakh for a family,” he informed.
The department has targeted to establish 691 health and wellness centres in Assam.
“Currently a total of 685 are working across the state in health centres and we will further recruit 128 new CHOs,” said JVN Subramanyam, mission director of National Health Mission (NHM).
During the programme, health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma also launched 75 new ambulances under the Mrityunjay 108 emergency service and one boat ambulance was launched during the occasion.
“With the new fleet, we aim to bring down the average response time of the ambulance service in the state from the existing 22 minutes to an average of 15 minutes. In the next three months, we will launch another fleet of 75 new ambulances,” said Sarma.
“Earlier we had noticed that more than 100 ambulances were lying off the road. So we took the decision to rejuvenate the services,” said the minister.
Speaking during the programme, Sarma also announced that by next year, the government will launch a free vehicle service for carrying dead bodies.