Jalandhar: Health Minister launches ‘Stop Epilepsy Project’
Jalandhar: Health and Family Welfare Minister Dr. Balbir Singh today inaugurated the “STOP-Epilepsy Project” at District Hospital, Nawanshahr. The main objective of this project is to improve the capacity of medical staff in primary care, to manage the treatment of epilepsy. The project will focus on providing better clinical services to people suffering from epilepsy and standardizing ongoing care. Dr. Balbir Singh highlighted the importance of providing epilepsy treatment on priority basis for public health protection. He stressed the need for primary health workers to play a vital role in the treatment management of epilepsy at an early stage.
Dr. Balbir Singh said that this project has been launched in three districts of the country, which include Nawanshahr in Punjab, Hamirpur in Himachal Pradesh and Godavari Bhimavaram in Andhra Pradesh. He said that epilepsy is not a disease in itself but a disorder of the nervous system related to the brain, in which seizures occur. Epilepsy can occur at any age. This disease affects about one crore people in the country, including 3 lakh people from Punjab. Although treatment is possible with simple and cheap medicines, there is a huge difference in the treatment. 70 percent of the people suffering from this disease are deprived of treatment. He said that with the start of this project, people suffering from epilepsy in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar district will get the best treatment. During this, the ‘Stop Epilepsy’ team requested the Health Minister to include more epilepsy medicines in the list of essential medicines in Punjab, on which the Health Minister expressed his commitment and said that all those medicines will be made available for the betterment of epilepsy patients.
