File picture of Ghulam Nabi Azad
Assam has emerged as a role model in the health sector of the country by implementing the highest number of schemes under the National Rural Health Mission, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said on Sunday.
Inaugurating the 102 National Ambulance Service and Tele-Radiology Project along with other schemes under the NRHM, Mr Azad lauded the state government's initiative in the health sector which he said would be replicated in other states as well.
"The 102 service would augment the existing 108 ambulance service, which has greatly benefited patients across the country and will provide quality transportation of patients to hospitals," he said.
The ambulance service would respond and reach patients within half an hour, besides transporting pregnant women and infants from home to hospital and if required back to home as well, the Union Minister said.
"The service will facilitate an integrated all-comprehensive health care management providing high-end ambulated transportation for appropriate care in the hospital," Mr Azad said.
He also launched the Tele-Radiology Project, the first in the country to initiate such a project under the NRHM.
"We are looking how the project can be implemented in other parts of the country under the Mission."
The Rs 22-crore project has been initiated in 11 districts of the state and the facility would be gradually expanded with patients able to download their reports assessed by experts stationed at Guwahati or Bangalore, without taking the trouble of visiting the hospital again, Mr Azad added.