J. Radha-krishnan, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare Department
While continuing the sustained efforts for COVID-19 prevention and control in 2021, the Health Department will also focus on strengthening medical education, improving maternal and child health outcomes, and preventing and controlling communicable and non-communicable diseases (NCD).
Even now, Tamil Nadu has the largest number of government medical colleges in the country. The focus of the State government will be to ensure that works on the 11 new government medical colleges are completed, and to add 1,650 new MBBS seats in the next academic session.
NCDs will be a crucial priority for the Department. The State is aware that NCDs such as cancer, diabetes and hypertension are silent killers. We will have to also focus on communicable diseases such as tuberculosis, HIV and dengue.
We want to ensure that the focus comes back to these diseases, without losing focus on preventing and controlling COVID-19. Steps will be taken to continue improving maternal and child healthcare. In 2020, COVID-19 made sure that the health infrastructure was improved. We will maintain that. We need to ensure that COVID-19-appropriate behaviour is brought in. Only a change in behaviour can prevent the infection and other similar diseases.
