Jagan Reddy lays foundation for 14 new medical colleges in Andhra

AMARAVATI: Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy on Monday laid the foundation stone for the establishment of 14 new medical colleges across the state to provide advanced medicare and better healthcare services for the future generations.
At present, there are 11 functional medical colleges in Andhra Pradesh, according to an official statement.
In order to ramp up the medical infrastructure in the state, the government has proposed setting up 16 new medical and nursing colleges.
The construction work for two of the medical colleges at Paderu and Pulivendula has already started.
While virtually laying the foundation, the Chief Minister said, "We are laying the foundation stone for 14 out of the 16 new teaching medical colleges that the government is building. Work in two locations, Paderu and Pulivendula has already started, making it 16. Along with medical colleges, we are also constructing nursing colleges at all these locations".
With the establishment of new colleges, the number of medical seats is expected to increase significantly. The state government is also ensuring that more seats are available for the poor students by filling 70 per cent in the convenor quota and 30 per cent in the payment quota.
The new medical colleges are being established at Paderu, Vizianagaram, Anakapalli, Rajahmundry, Palakollu, Amalapuram, Eluru, Machilipatnam, Bapatla, Markapuram, Piduguralla, Madanapalli, Pulivendula, Penukonda, Adoni and Nandyal.
The state government has also issued orders for the construction of multi speciality hospitals in tribal areas of Seethampeta, Parvathipuram, Rampachodavaram, Buttayigudem and Dornala. An extent of 885 acres of land has also been procured in these areas for medical colleges and multi-speciality hospitals, the statement added.
For ensuring the facilitation of proper medical education, 150 seats each for Vizianagaram, Anakapalli, Rajahmundry, Eluru, Machilipatnam have been reserved in these colleges. The remaining medicals colleges will also have 100 admissions each for these areas, making the total of reserved admission around 2000.
The construction work for medical colleges at Paderu, Piduguralla, Pulivendula is under progress, while tenders have been evaluated for Vizianagaram, Anakapalli, Amalapuram, Rajahmundry, Eluru, Palakollu, Bapatla, Markapuram, Madanapalli, Penukonda, Nandyal and Adoni.
All these medical colleges and teaching hospitals will be offering emergency, casualty and diagnostic services, with advanced Intensive Care Units (ICUs), and 10 state-of-art Modular Operation Theatres.
With the hope to create better healthcare infrastructure to be able to fight corona-like pandemics in future, Reddy said, "We have suffered adversely because of our crippling healthcare situation which lacks facilities like those in tier-1 cities like Hyderabad, Bengaluru and Chennai. With the building of these new colleges, ensuring one for each parliamentary constituency, lets us prepare ourselves better than any other state, and helps us place ourselves at par with these cities and emerge as a medical powerhouse".
Besides these, the Nadu Nedu initiative taken by the state government envisions to prioritise the modernisation of the health sector. The aim of the initiative is to revamp the existing health infrastructure and to put in place a robust decentralized tertiary public healthcare infrastructure and facilities to provide accessible and affordable tertiary healthcare to the people of Andhra Pradesh.
Under this initiative, all the existing health facilities will be upgraded as per the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS) for Sub-centers, PHCs, CHCs, AHs and National Medical Commission (NMC) norms for teaching hospitals.