One district-one medical college reduced load on Lucknow hospitals

The ‘one district-one medical college’ initiative of the state government has helped improve health services in several districts and also reduce the load on premier institutions such as PGI and KGMU, said a government note on Sunday.

A two-stage survey with a focus on the outpatient wing, indoor admissions, and cesarean and major surgeries at hospitals, showed improvement in the healthcare services. The survey included data for periods before and after some medical colleges became functional. “The load on King George’s Medical University and PGI hospital has reduced,” said the report.

District hospitals at Bahraich, Deoria and Hardoi had an OPD footfall of about five lakh a year. According to the survey, the Deoria hospital received less than five lakh patients annually before. After a medical college started there, the OPD footfall increased to 5.30 lakh annually. Similarly, the number of patients also went up in Gazipur, Shahjahanpur and Ayodhya, the press statement added.

“This indicates that the start of colleges has given better services to people, who now don’t prefer to come to Lucknow,“ the survey suggested.

In Bahraich and Hardoi, admissions, annually, were 75,000, which went over one lakh patients after medical colleges started there. In Gazipur, Shahjahanpur, Ayodhya and Deoria, the figure crossed 50,000.

“If patients get admission and better surgical facilities in their own district/hometown, they will be saved from unwarranted travel to the state capital. This saves the patients’ travel cost too and helps in faster recovery,” said Dr Abhishek Shukla, secretary general of Association of International Doctors. Hindustan Time