Railways plan to set up 18 medical and seven nursing colleges

To improve its medical facilities, Indian Railways is planning to use the public-private partnership model. Minister of state for Railways KH Muniyappa informed about the latest plans of Railways while speaking in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. 

In a written reply, Muniyappa informed the House about http://www.domain-b.com/companies/companies_I/Indian_Railways/20091211_r... ">Indian Railways’ plans wherein 18 medical colleges are proposed to add to existing railway hospitals through PPP.
 
Chennai, Hyderabad, Bilaspur, Jodhpur, Gardenreach, Nagpur, Ahmedabad, B R Singh Hospital Kolkata, Bhopal, Lucknow, Barasat, Bhubaneshwar, Mysore, Kharagpur, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Jammu and Thirvanthapuram have been chosen as the locations for these medical colleges.  
 
In the same way, the railways also have decided to set up seven nursing colleges. These nursing colleges have been proposed to be set up in the cities like Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai (Kalyan), Chennai, Secunderabad, Lucknow and Jabalpur. Apart from them, training institute at Dankuni (West Bengal) has also been planned by the railways.
  
The railways are also adding to its medical facilities on various high-profile and fast trains. All long distance trains in the country carry the first aid facilities for passengers, and the guard carries the first aid box in every train, informed the minister. These apart, the railways are seriously considering a proposal to depute a doctor on a few long distance trains stopping at just a few stations, he added. 
 
For better medical facilities, the train superintendents of Rajdhani/Shatabdi Express trains and guards of other nominated trains have already been provided with augmented first aid boxes with wider range of medicines, disposable medical material etc, informed the minister.
 
The railways have also been providing training to superintendents, conductors, and travelling ticket examiners to effectively deal with first aid measures.