Over 50,000 Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres operational across country
New Delhi: More than 50,000 Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs), which aim at providing primary health care services to communities closer to their homes, are now operational across the country and have witnessed over 28.10 crore footfalls, the Health ministry said on Friday.
The ministry said 1.5 lakh AB-HWCs are to be established by December 2022.
With more than 50,000 centres having been established, one-third of the target has been met. This has led to improved access to affordable primary healthcare services, it said in a statement.
This has been possible due to the joint efforts of the Center and the States/UTs in planning, monitoring at all levels, standardization of processes, the flexibility for adaptation provided to the States/UTs, and building on the health systems created thus far," Health minister Harsh Vardhan said.
He thanked frontline health workers, medical officers, community health officers and ASHAs for their dedication to the cause of providing comprehensive primary health care services and for supporting millions of people with necessary services in these difficult times.
They are the backbone of the healthcare delivery system. Their contribution during the COVID period has been exemplary, Vardhan said.
The Health and Wellness Centres have helped in interventions such as risk communication, contact tracing, community surveillance and early identification of cases, and seamless provisioning of non-COVID essential health services for ensuring protection of vulnerable groups, such as newborn, elderly and those with comorbidities, it said.
The 50,025 operational AB-HWCs are now spread across 678 districts, and include 27,890 Sub Health Centres, 18,536 Primary Health Centres and 3,599 Urban Primary Health Centres, the ministry said.
Together, these AB-HWC have witnessed over 28.10 crore footfalls of which over 53 per cent percent are women who sought care at these centres.
More than 6.43 crore people have been screened for hypertension, 5.23 crore for diabetes and 6.14 crore people for cancer. About 1.0 crore people are being provided free drugs for treatment of hypertension and about 60 lakh for diabetes, it said.
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Phase five LS polls: Rae Bareli, Amethi among 14 UP seats going to polls on Monday
Lucknow(PTI): Voting for the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Uttar Pradesh, which will decide the fate of four Union ministers, including Rajnath Singh and Smriti Irani, and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, will be held on Monday.
Voting will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency.
The seats going to polls in the fifth phase are Mohanlalganj (SC), Rae Bareli, Amethi, Jalaun (SC), Jhansi, Hamirpur, Banda, Fatehpur, Kaushambi (SC), Barabanki (SC), Faizabad, Kaisarganj and Gonda.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
Rahul Gandhi is in the fray from Rae Bareli, which was represented by his mother and former Congress president Sonia Gandhi earlier.
Over 2.68 crore voters are eligible to exercise their polling rights and 144 candidates are in the fray.
The BJP gave tickets to 11 of its sitting Lok Sabha MPs in this phase, while it had fielded new candidates in Barabanki (SC) seat and Kaisarganj.
In the INDIA bloc, the Congress has fielded K L Sharma from Amethi, Tanuj Punia from Barabanki (SC) and Pradeep Jain 'Aditya' from Jhansi. The Samajwadi Party (SP) candidates are in the poll fray on the rest of the seats.
Defence minister Singh is eyeing a fourth term from Lucknow. He is pitted against sitting SP MLA Ravidas Mehrotra from Lucknow Central.
From the neighbouring constituency of Amethi, Irani is in the poll fray.
In Kaisarganj Lok Sabha seat, the contest is between BJP's Karan Bhushan Singh, son of former MP and ex-president of Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, and SP's Bhagat Ram.
Faizabad Lok Sabha seat, which covers the temple town of Ayodhya, will see a contest between sitting BJP MP Lallu Singh, who is seeking a hat-trick, and Awadhesh Prasad, the SP MLA from Milkipur (SC) assembly constituency in Ayodhya district.
In Hamirpur, the poll contest is between BJP's Kunwar Pushpendra Singh Chandel, eyeing a third term, and SP's Ajendra Singh Lodhi.
In Gonda, BJP's Kirti Vardhan Singh, who is eyeing a fifth term, is facing a contest from SP's Shreya Verma.
The main electoral contest in Banda is between RK Singh Patel, who is seeking a third term, and Krishna Devi Shivshankar Patel of the SP.
Vinod Kumar Sonkar, who is eyeing a hat-trick of Lok Sabha wins, will be facing SP's Pushpendra Saroj, son of SP leader Indrajeet Saroj, for Kaushambi (SC) constituency.
Voting will also take place for the assembly bypoll to Lucknow East assembly constituency.
Bypoll in the Lucknow East assembly constituency was necessitated following the death of sitting MLA Ashutosh Tandon on November 9, 2023.
