New medical colleges to be opened in Bihar: Nitish

Patna, Dec 28 (UNI) Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said nine medical colleges would be opened soon with a view to extending medical education facilities to more willing students.

Addressing national conference of the Indian Medical Association here, Mr Kumar said Karnataka had one medical college and hospital on every 13 lakhs of population while Bihar had one medical college covering more than one crore people.

He said the government had initiated several steps to clear the bottlenecks in opening new medical colleges and hospitals in the state. With the opening of new medical colleges the number of people covered by one medical college would come down to 20 lakhs.

He said of the 13 medical colleges, four would be opened by the stte government while four others would come up with the assistance from private sectors. Four new government medical colleges would be set up in-- Patna, Nalanda, Madhepura and East Champaran.

''No objection certificates had already been issued for opening four private medical colleges in--Patna, Saharsa, Arra and Sasaram while process was on to issue the same for other five medical colleges in private sectors'' he added.

Mr Kumar said results were now visible following the steps taken by the state government to improve better health care at grass roots levels.'' Earlier hardly 20 patients were getting treatment from primary health centres per month but this figure had gone up to 3000'' he stated adding doctors and para medical staffs were now attending the patients in remote areas.'' Free availability of some selected medicines and arrangements for pathological test facilities at primary health facilities had restored the faith of the common man in government hospitals'' he added.

He called upon the medical fraternity to discharge their duties with responsiblity.

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