BHUBANESWAR: Chief minister Naveen Patnaik here on Monday flagged off a chartered plane carrying doctors to Malkangiri district, as part of the government's newly-launched Mukhyamantri Bayu Swasthya Seva (CM's Air Health Service), to offer free healthcare services to patients in the remotest parts of the state.
The inaugural flight, an eight-seater, carrying four super-specialists of the SCB Medical College and Hospital and two senior functionaries of the health department, took off from the Biju Patnaik International Airport and landed at Jeypore airport.
From Jeypore, the doctors travelled 100km by road to the Malkangiri district headquarters hospital. After providing consultations and doing procedures for two days, they would again travel to Jeypore by road and fly back to Bhubaneswar from there on Tuesday.
"The new service will help the economically weaker sections avail of high quality care," Naveen said after inaugurating the programme. The government has announced that the service will be provided in four districts, the other three being Nabarangpur, Kalahandi and Nuapada.
Bijay Mohapatra, director health services, who was among those who boarded the first flight, said, "The service is being planned at three levels. The local doctors posted in the districts are evaluating the cases, which need the intervention of super-specialists and preparing the lists of such patients and are coordinating with them to bring them to the district headquarters hospitals."
Senior residents from medical colleges, who are in the teams of super-specialists, are then visiting these places by road a few days before the specialists fly. They are evaluating the patients by taking the help of the specialists through tele-consultation before the consultants are flown in. The senior residents would stay for few days after the procedures for follow-up care with the help of locally posted doctors.
Datteswar Hota, urologist and principal of the SCB Medical College and Hospital, who flew to Malkangiri and did some interventional procedures, said a 42-year-old woman with consistent unusual lower abdominal pain a few months after removal of kidney stone was treated for her ureteral stricture (narrowing of duct that carries urine from kidneys to bladder) while an eight-year-old boy was operated upon for some congenital defects (left undescended testes).
