Nadda Opens 10 Critical Care Blocks, 12 Labs in Andhra Pradesh

Union Health Minister Jagat Prakash Nadda inaugurated 10 Critical Care Blocks and 12 Integrated Public Health Laboratories in Andhra Pradesh on 12 September 2026. Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu was present. So was the state Health Minister, Satya Kumar Yadav. The facilities come under the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, known as PM-ABHIM.

What the two kinds of facility do

A Critical Care Block gives advanced emergency and intensive care at the district level. An Integrated Public Health Laboratory gives diagnostic and disease surveillance capacity. The Minister described them as two sides of the same system. One saves a patient who is already critically ill. The other spots a disease threat before it grows into an emergency. He said the lesson of COVID-19 was that health security is national security.

The numbers behind the scheme

The wider health picture

The state funding covers four components. These are Critical Care Blocks, Integrated Public Health Laboratories, Urban Ayushman Arogya Mandirs and Rural Ayushman Arogya Mandirs. Mr Nadda placed the change in the frame of the National Health Policy of 2017, which linked preventive, primary, secondary and tertiary care together. He said more than 1.75 lakh Ayushman Arogya Mandirs now work across the country. He said out-of-pocket expenditure on health has fallen to 43.4 per cent. He said 16 new AIIMS have come up in twelve years, taking the count to 23. He said vaccination records are now tracked digitally through U-WIN. He praised Andhra Pradesh for its work under Mission Indradhanush. He also praised the state's Sanjeevani programme, which takes health services to the doorstep and tests for 41 health parameters, and said its model could be studied for use elsewhere.