Kolkata: The West Bengal government will be adding 17,000 hospital beds this year to the existing 63,000 to boost delivery of health care facilities, an official said.
"During 2015-16, we will add another 17,000 beds which will cost Rs.2,600 crore," state's Health Secretary Malay De told mediapersons on the sidelines of an event organised by CII.
The total number of beds thus will increase to 80 thousand. He said 34 super multi-speciality hospitals have been planned in the state. Of this, one will come up in August this year and six more will be in place during 2016-17.
He said in addition to it, the state is also focussing on improving the cancer care facility in Kolkata. "Improving the cancer care facility will cost another Rs.250 crore," he said.
The government will be procuring linear accelerators in all government medical colleges which will be used for radiotherapy. The government has tied up with a Singaporean healthcare institute which will support and train the state government's staff.
De said the outpatient footfalls in the state has been registered at 12 million a year.
In addition, the official said a number of diseases have been brought under control in the state and some of them will soon be eradicated.
"Kala-azar, philaria and leprosy will soon be eradicated from West Bengal while dengue and malaria have been kept under control", he said.
However, De warned of an ageing population in the state and said due to low total fertility rate (TFR) in the state, population will not grow after 2031.
"The present TFR here is 1.2 while the national one stands at 2.1. By 2031, population in the state will start decreasing," he said.
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