Kolkata: The West Bengal government has sanctioned a corpus of Rs 157 crore in the State Budget to create a fund called Ratri Sathi, Helpers of the Night for the benefit of women working in the healthcare sector especially in the night.
This was announced by the Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Chandrima Bhattacharya during the State Budget presentation.
Created in memory of Abhaya of the infamous R G Kar incident, each health center in every district of the state will have separate rest rooms and washrooms for women. There will be special lighting and CCTV installed in every nook and corner of each health center. Sufficient drinking water too will be provided.
Citing the state’s healthcare achievements in the past one year, Bhattacharya informed that the public health units across the state had provided free medicines to more than 15 crore people.
From 117 fair price medicine shops across the state, medicines worth more than Rs 3000 crore have been sold at 48-80% discount. Not just modern medicines, the state government has focused on Ayush medicines too with OPD already starting at Yogashree in Belur, Howrah.
The Chokher Alo project has helped more than 1 crore people to get their eyes examined. 14.84 lakh people have received glasses for free under this project while 10 districts have been declared as cataract free.
Going forward, 137 public health units will be activated by April 2025. The government is also partnering Tata Memorial Hospital Mumbai to set up two advance cancer care and treatment centers in SSKM Hospital, Kolkata and North Bengal Medical College Siliguri.
