From the Statesman on 11th April 2013 "Administration to bear surgery costs of ICDS kids"

Administration to bear surgery costs of ICDS kids

10 April 2013statesman news serviceDURGAPUR, 10 APRIL: The district administration has agreed to bear surgery expenses of Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) kids suffering from cardiac ailments. Five such children have primarily been selected for the same.Roni Mete, around four-and-a-half-years underwent successful surgery on 4 April and is now recovering. He belongs to a BPL family from the  Bonkati village, Kanksa PS area.

 

On 5 April, Anita Hasda was admitted to a private hospital. Parvin Khatoon, another such patient was admitted on 8 April.Today, Nandini Kisku and Sk Niamuddin, underwent cardiac surgeries.

The district administration provided Rs 1.20 lakh for both. The DM, Burdwan, Mr Onkar S Meena, the one responsible for the venture, said: “We run 9,300 ICDS Centres in Burdwan and we had initiated a programme to take stock of the children's health, which exposed that many were suffering from malnutrition and that some were also facing acute cardiac disorder.” He also said: “We discussed the matter with the private tertiary care hospital, whether they would agree to operate the children against subsidies expense.”

The DM said the undertaking became possible after the hospital authority in Durgapur agreed.After last year’s positive health check-up camps in ICDS Centres, the district authority has now replicated the affirmative for ICDS kids. Growth monitoring, including regular health and weight check-ups of 5 lakh kids were conducted at ICDS centres of the district, covering 39 projects, by ICDS workers visiting each house in the past six months across the district. In all, around 3,400 children were identified through screening with below average growth moderate to severely malnourished children and they were facilitated health check up by medical teams and child specialists to ascertain their causes of illness and poor body growth. On their recommendations, the officials said that it was found that out of them 146 children needed immediate surgeries for serious ailments related to heart, eyes, kidney, hernia, orthopaedic.

The DM said: “We submitted a proposal to the state and got sanction of Rs 35 lakh from NRHM funds for treatment of these kids at private and state-run hospitals at our expenses to be paid to a hospital of the parents' choice.”