-PTI Taking a tough stand, West Bengal government today said it would be compelled to appoint doctors from other states if the state's own doctors continued to refuse to join the rural health services. Determined to shore up the health infrastructure in the state, the government warned that appointment given to those selected for the state health services would be scrapped if they fail to join before December 11. Director of...

The state government has sought technical advice and assistance on its proposed plan to carry out mass vaccination ahead of monsoon next year in Gaya and adjoining districts to stop outbreak of Japanese encephalitis and acute encephalitis syndrome. Sanjay Kumar, the secretary of the state health department, said the state was keen on going for a mass immunisation and regular immunisation for Japanese encephalitis as a preventive measure next year. “We...

Health is a state of mental, social and physical well-being and not merely an absence of disease or infirmity. To achieve this noble objective, India requires health care professionals who are trained in institutions with standardised infrastructure, and the availability of accessible and equitable health care for both the rural and urban populace. Recently, the health sector has been in the news — from the creation of a rural based...

In the wake of uproar over the crib deaths at two State-run hospitals, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said most of the babies that had died were underweight and malnourished. Emphasising that the problem was “hidden elsewhere,” Ms. Banerjee, who has additional charge of the Health portfolio, blamed the previous Left Front government for the poor healthcare infrastructure in the State. “West Bengal ranks fourth after Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu...

Even as four more babies died in the B.C. Roy Post-Graduate Institute of Paediatric Sciences here, raising the number of crib deaths there to 17, another 12 died in the Burdwan Medical College and Hospital in Bardhaman.In neither of the hospitals was there any report of medical negligence resulting in the deaths, the authorities claimed. But the high incidence of deaths, over a span of four days, has raised fresh questions...