: Telangana makes major strides in health care #IndiaNEWS #News Hyderabad: In a span of just eight years, Telangana, the youngest Indian state, has emerged amongst the best performers in healthcare

Telangana makes major strides in health care #IndiaNEWS #News
Hyderabad: In a span of just eight years, Telangana, the youngest Indian state, has emerged amongst the best performers in healthcare sector by consistently improving on its key health indicators.
The slew of developmental measures taken by Chief Minister, K Chandrashekhar Rao to improve public healthcare system has propelled Telangana amongst top three performing States in the country.
One of the major achievements for Telangana in the health sector has been its incremental improvements in key health indicators including Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Under5Mortality Rate (U5MR).
Over the years, the initiatives aimed at improving Mother and Child Health (MCH) has been the cornerstone of the State government’s efforts to improve IMR and MMR. The KCR Kits initiative along with financial benefit played a significant role in improvement of maternal health, apart from boosting institutional deliveries.
Despite three successive waves of Covid infections, Telangana government has ensured upgrading of medical infrastructure is taken up at a brisk pace, which was never witnessed in the region before statehood. Steady allocation of funds has ensured that new medical colleges and super-speciality hospitals are in course for inauguration, despite the challenges of the pandemic.
Before statehood, Telangana region had four medical colleges with a capacity of 700 MBBS seats. Following statehood, Telangana government adopted expansion of medical education in a phase-wise manner. In the first phase, four medical colleges were added in Mahabubnagar, Nalgonda, Suryapet and Siddipet which have been operational for the past four-years and the overall number of MBBS seats in the State increased to 1640.
In the second phase, the State government established eight more medical colleges at Sangareddy, Mahabubabad, Mancherial, Jagtial, Wanaparthy, Kothagudem, Nagarkurnool and Ramagundam which are expected to start functioning from this academic year i. e. 2022-2023.
Apart from focussing on infrastructure development, the State government has made efforts to take up required recruitment. It already accorded permission to Medical Health Services Recruitment Board and Telangana State Public Services Commission to recruit 12,755 Direct Recruitment vacancies.
Key Health Indicators (Mother and Child Health) in TS:
1. Before statehood, MMR was 92 and after statehood it is 56.
2. IMR came down from 39 to 21.
3. Under 5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) improved from 41 to 30
4. Neonatal mortality rate (NMR) improved from 25 to 17.
5. NITI Aayog ranks Telangana third after Kerala and Tamil Nadu for best healthcare
KCR Kits and Maternal Health:
1.