Gujarat to check kids — and treat them

GANDHINAGAR - More than 300,000 officials, including 5,528 doctors, will medically check over 1.52 crore children across Gujarat from Dec 3 to Feb 15, 2011, it was announced Monday.

Health Minister Jaynarayan Vyas said the special drive had been taken up at the behest of Chief Minister Narendra Modi with the twin objectives of ensuring heath and detecting diseases among children.

Vyas said the campaign would cover 38.18 lakh children in 47,413 anganwadis, 84.15 lakh students in 41,020 primary schools and 29.79 lakh students in secondary schools.

“The check-up would include infants up to six years and even non-school-going children up to the age of 14 years,” he added.

He said the government had authorized district-level officers to take fast decision on providing free super-specialty treatment for serious diseases particularly pertaining to the heart, kidney and cancer.

If necessary, the government will send children belonging to Below Poverty Line (BPL) families suffering from serious diseases to experts outside Gujarat.