Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare Mansukh Mandaviya on Friday said that a total of 1,70,000 Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs), rechristened as ‘Ayushman Arogya Mandir’, have been created in the country.
The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare was speaking after laying the foundation stone for two critical care blocks and BSL-3 labs in Vijayawada under the PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (PM-ABHIM) scheme.
Mandaviya also inaugurated seven Integrated Public Health Laboratory (IPHL) labs at Old Government General Hospital.
The pan-India health infrastructure strengthening scheme–PM ABHIM–was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in October 2021. It aims to produce robust outcomes in Public Health leapfrogging India to one of the most advanced countries in the world in terms of management of Public Health outbreaks.
Speaking on the occasion, the Health Minister said that PM Modi looked at the health sector with a holistic approach.
“If a society is healthy, it ushers the country into a prosperous nation. And therefore, PM Modi looked at the health sector with a holistic approach,” Mandaviya said.
“There was a time when some leaders would come and say to build a hospital in their respective constituencies, leading to inequalities for many parts of the country where the health infrastructure could not be created. PM Modi said this will not happen, and health should be accessible and affordable for all. Therefore, the government started working in the health sector with a holistic approach. The result was that today, 1,70,000 Ayushman Arogya Mandir, widely known as Primary Health and Wellness Centres, have been built in the country,” he said.
The Union Health Minister said that today there is one Ayushman Arogya Mandir per five to six thousand people. “Ten types of testing can be done there,” he said.
Meanwhile, as per the government, the development of critical Care Hospital Blocks in 602 districts as proposed under the PM-ABHIM scheme, shall make such districts self-sufficient, to a large extent, in providing comprehensive treatment for infectious diseases without disruption to the other essential health services and also augment the critical care capacities in the public health facilities.