As informed by Lady Harding Medical College (LHMC), one study has been conducted as part of MD Thesis in department of Community Medicine 2014-2017 at Kalyanpuri Urban Health Centre (under LHMC) in association with Lal Bahadur Shastri Hospital (under GNCT, Delhi). As per this study the mean per capita annual expenditure on diabetes care is Rs.8958.00
Public health and hospitals being a State subject, the primary responsibility of providing accessible, affordable and quality healthcare lies with the respective State Governments. Under National Health Mission, to reduce out of pocket expenditure on healthcare, support is being provided to States/UTs for strengthening of their healthcare system based on the requirements posed by them in their Programme Implementation Plans.
Government of India is implementing National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS) under the National Health Mission. The objectives of the programme include awareness generation, providing diagnosis and treatment facilities through different levels of healthcare by setting up NCD Clinics in District Hospitals and Community Health Centres (CHCs).
For early diagnosis, population level initiative of prevention, control and screening of common NCDs (diabetes, hypertension and cancers viz. oral, breast and cervical cancer) has been rolled out in over 100 districts of the country in 2017-18 under. This will help in early diagnosis/treatment leading to reduce complications due to diabetes and financial burden on the Diabetic patients.
The Central Government, through its hospitals augments the efforts of the State Governments for providing health services in the country. Under Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana(PMSSY), 6 new AIIMS have been set up and upgradation of identified medical colleges has been undertaken which will also improve tertiary care facilities for NCDs including Diabetes.
Quality generic medicines are being made available at affordable prices to all, under ‘Jan Aushadhi Scheme’, in collaboration with the State Governments.
Under National Health Mission Free Drugs and Free Diagnostic initiative, essential drugs and diagnostics are provided free of cost in public health facilities.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has also started AMRIT (Affordable Medicines and Reliable Implants for Treatment) stores where essential life-saving medicines are being provided at a substantial discount vis-à-vis the Maximum Retail Price. The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Smt Anupriya Patel stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.
Allied Health Professionals Database Portal launched
Ms. Preeti Sudan, Secretary, Health and Family Welfare launched the Allied and Healthcare Professionals’ database portal, here today, as part of Ministry’s commitment to ensure better systems and frameworks for the healthcare workforce in the country.
At the launch, Ms. Sudan, said that India enjoys a demographic dividend of more than 65% youth below the age of 35 years and the Government of India is eager to provide the country’s youth a strong foundation for continued and sustainable growth. She stated that the country is facing increasing burden of lifestyle diseases and ailments, and needs better standards and appropriate frameworks for professionals providing health services to the population. Further, she highlighted that as an essential pre-requisite to achieve this, the Health Ministry aims to put in place a robust data repository of healthcare workers and further emphasized that unless the existing manpower capacity is mapped adequately, successful policies cannot be framed. She added that this portal is a provisional measure taken by the Ministry to track and reach out to all the allied and healthcare professionals in the country till such a time that a statutory body is established.
More than 3000 professionals have already registered on the portal during the testing phase. The link to the website portal is a2hp.mohfw.gov.in.
The portal has a capacity of capturing more than 10 lakhs Allied and Healthcare Professionals’ data. It will help the Government to track the number of professionals and streams of allied and healthcare professions in the country. It may further prove helpful in expediting the envisaged processes viz. licensing of professionals, workforce policy planning, and bringing transparency in the system by maintaining standards of educational and clinical practice etc. The Allied and Healthcare Professionals’ can visit the portal on the link mentioned above and provide basic personal, qualification and professional information, the portal will then send an auto-generated email to the registered email of the candidate for verification and will provide an enrolment reference number for further usage. The candidates can subsequently login to the portal using the credentials received in the email and edit the information, upload qualification degree etc.
Also present at the event were Additional Secretary (Health) Sh. Sanjeeva Kumar and Joint Secretary Sh. Arun Singhal, among other officials and dignitaries from NIC at Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.