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The Government of India conducts a National Summit on good replicable practices and innovations in Public Health Care Schemes in India. This year the Summit is being organized for the 7th time and because of COVID-19 is being conducted in a virtual mode. The best practices in Public Health Care w.r.t. Non Communicable Disease Control Programmes was
held on 06.01.2021 and from the State of HP two innovations i.e. Operationalization of three Geriatric Day Care Centers and the Sunday Active Case Finding Campaign for
Tuberculosis have been chosen by the Govt. of India as best practices across the country, this was stated by the Mission Director, NHM, Dr. Nipun Jindal here today.
He stated that the NHM in partnership with Help Age India has opened three Geriatric Care Centers in Shimla, Mandi and Dharamshala towns of the State which were inaugurated on
21.08.2019, the “World Senior Citizen Day”. To offset the challenges of the Geriatric Care particularly increasing geriatric population, increasing load of non-communicable diseases, low mobility and isolation due to rapid urbanization and societal modernization, these centers have been opened to cater to the varied needs of the elderly population of these three towns.
These centers provide a comprehensive gambit of services under a single roof including Health Care, Skill building, legal aid and counselling, activity based physical and mental engagement and recreational activities.
He further added that till November, 2020 more than 25,000 beneficiaries have benefitted from this service including close to 15,000 elderly people who have taken physiotherapy and close to 2,500 people in geriatric age group who have been examined in various health
camps.
The presentation in this regard was made by the MD to all the other State’s Health Departments and the Govt. of India showcasing the unique service delivery alongwith dovetailing with other programmes like NCD programme, free drugs, digital literacy, legal
services etc.
In the second half of the day, the State initiative of Sunday Active Case Finding campaign was presented to the other States by the way of poster. The MD informed that since the
innovation has been implemented in the State 56,81,115 number of persons have been screened verbally by the ASHA workers for symptoms of Tuberculosis, out of which on the
basis of presumptive diagnosis, 12,018 sputum samples have been collected by the Asha workers during this activity.
Out of these sputum samples of 2.28% people have come out to be positive which is the additional yield of Sunday Active Case Finding for TB case notification.
The districts of Kangra, Una and Mandi have been the front runners in this initiative in terms of the sputum samples collection and the TB case diagnosis.
He further informed that this activity is proving to be a catalyst under the National TB Elimination Programme in the State.