Emulate fair price medicine shops like WB: Centre to states

Kolkata: Fair price medicine shops set up in the various government hospitals by the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal has attracted the attention of the Centre, a minister said on Saturday. In her reply during the department budget which was passed in the house, Minister of state for Health Chandrima Bhattacharya said that the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had appreciated the move taken by the Mamata Banerjee government for patients to get medicines with up to 67 per cent discount on MRP.

Reading out the union ministry`s letter to the state government in the House, she said that the Centre had asked other state governments to follow the West Bengal model for the benefit of poor patients. She informed the house that after the new government came to power in 2011, the number of medical seats had been increased from 1650 to 2600 and another 100 were in the pipeline at the Bankura and North Bengal medical colleges. The number of seats for MS and MD courses had also been increased from 630 to 802. The minister said that the government was planning to induct multi-skilled male health workers in government hospitals to discharge the duties of a nurse. PTI