Dr Harsh Vardhan, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare along with Sh. Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh digitally inaugurated the Super Speciality Block at Motilal Nehru Medical College, Prayagraj. The 220-bedded facility has been dedicated as a COVID Hospital to the nation. The Union Health Minister also digitally inaugurated first high throughput COBAS 6800 machine in Uttar Pradesh, installed by ICMR to pursue its regionally balanced COVID Testing strategy.

The Super Speciality Block is built with an investment of Rs 150 crores under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY). It has departments of Neurology, Neurosurgery, Nephrology, Urology, Plastic surgery, Endocrinology, Surgical Oncology, Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgery. There will be seven Operation Theaters, 233 Super Specialty Beds, 52 ICU Beds, 13 dialysis beds in the SSB. This facility will have a training capacity of 24 PG students.

Launching the COBAS 6800 high throughput machine, Dr Harsh Vardhan stated “The COBAS 6800, a fully automated, high-end machine for performing real-time PCR testing for COVID-19 will provide quality, high-volume testing with a high throughput of around 1200 samples in 24 hours. COBAS 6800 can also detect other pathogens like Viral Hepatitis B & C, HIV, MTb (both Rifampicin and Isoniazid resistance), Papilloma, Cytomegalovirus, Chlamydia, Neiserreia etc.” It can be operated remotely with limited human intervention, he added.

Noting Late Prime Minister Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s Independence Day Address of 2003 as a guiding beacon for the Government’s commitment to end regional imbalance in medical care, Dr Harsh Vardhan said, “Prime Minister Sh. Narendra Modi Ji has set in motion Late Prime Minister Sh. Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s dream. The number of AIIMS has been increased from 6 to 22 while another 75 existing institutions are envisioned to be upgraded to provide AIIMS like service.”

Dr Harsh Vardhan expressed immense satisfaction with the progress of the work of PMSSY in Uttar Pradesh, “UP and Bihar were allotted two new AIIMS to tide over the regional imbalance. Both the AIIMS in UP are in advanced stages of completion with OPD services and undergraduate classes in operation in AIIMS Raebareili”. SSBs/Trauma Centres in SGPGIMS-Lucknow, Institute of Medical Sciences-BHU-Varanasi, Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College-AMU-Aligarh, Maharani Laxmi Bai Medical College- Jhansi, BRD Medical College- Gorakhpur, LLRM Medical College- Meerut have been completed under different phases of PMSSY while facilities in Government Medical College-Agra, Government Medical College-Kanpur, RIO at Institute of Medical Sciences-BHU-Varanasi are nearing completion. He also informed everybody present that 13 new Medical Colleges are planned in the State which will take the total number of medical colleges constructed in the State in the last two and a half years to 27. These medical colleges will be set-up in the districts of Bijnor, Gonda, Lalitpur, Chandauli, Bulandshahr, Pilibhit, Kaushambi, Amethi, Kanpur Dehat, Sultanpur, Lakhimpur, Auraiya and Sonebhadra.

Sh. Yogi Adityanath thanked the Union Government for its proactive role in strengthening the health infrastructure in Uttar Pradesh through PMSSY. Speaking on the timely importance of the new SSB built under the scheme that has been converted into a COVID Hospital, he said that people of adjoining districts like Kaushambi, Chitrakoot, Banda, Pratapgarh and Mirzapur will also be greatly benefitted. He informed that at the onset of the pandemic, 26 districts did not have a single ventilator but with the help of the Union Government, the COVID medical infrastructure in the state has been turned around which now has 1.75 lakh dedicated beds, daily tests ranging from 1.5-2 lakhs and at least one Level-I and Level-II COVID Care facility in every district.