CM assures treatment to poor, needy

Yavatmal: Though the cost of medication is escalating day by day, no poor and needy patient would be allowed to die for want of money for treatment in Maharashtra, said chief minister Devendra Fadnavis here on Sunday. He was addressing a gathering after inaugurating a mega health camp organized under the joint aegis of Baliraja Chetana Abhiyan, medical education and public health departments and the state government at GMC here.
Guardian minister Sanjay Rathod presided over the function while transport minister Diwakar Raote, water conservation minister Girish Mahajan, minister of state for home Ranjit Patil, MPs Bhavana Gawali and Dr Vikas Mahatme and VNSSM chairman Kishor Tiwari were among those seated on the dais.
Fadnavis said that Yavatmal GMC has been upgraded to super specialty hospital with 210 beds having eight different departments for which Rs150 crore has been sanctioned. The work on the hospital will commence in August and complete in three years. Health of the people has been the top priority of the government for which mega camps will be regularly organized, he added.
Though over 500 doctors from across the state were engaged in examining nearly 20,000 patients according to rough estimates, the chief minister failed to visit the camp. He left the venue soon after addressing the gathering.
A group of people shouting slogans against the government, demanding prohibition in the district, rushed to the dais at the end of the function, but the cops whisked them away.
There were reports of lack of coordination between various agencies and drinking water at the venue. Many poor and needy patients returned home unattended as there were long queues at diagnosis centres.