Three-tier healthcare plan for urban areas

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Siliguri, Sept. 26: The Bengal urban development department is drafting a policy that will put in place a three-tier system to provide better and intensive healthcare, especially to the poor, in towns and cities.

“In association with the health department, we are formulating Urban Health Policy aimed at ensuring improved healthcare to people living in urban areas. It is expected to be implemented soon,” urban development minister Asok Bhattacharya said here today.

Under the new arrangement, there would be one health worker for 1,000 people in all urban areas of the state.

The worker, the urban development department officials said, will treat people for minor diseases at doorsteps, prescribe preliminary medication and counsel people on adolescent health and nutrition.

He/she will also be tasked to identify and register pregnant women, keep stocks of ORS, folic acid tablets and some other medicines, distribute them and help conduct national programmes on diseases like AIDS, leprosy, blindness and malaria.

In the second tier, a health sub-centre would be set up for every 5,000 people. At these facilities, people would be provided with services such as antenatal and postnatal care, childcare and immunisation.

Added to these, at least three specialist doctors will be available at the out-patients departments of the sub-centres. There are also plans to keep provisions there for X-Ray, USG and pathological tests.

According to the minister, there will be a health centre in the third tier to cater for 20,000 people. “These centres will work in tandem with existing referrals like sub-divisional and district hospitals and medical colleges,” he said.

“To keep tabs on the activities of the three-tier arrangement, urban health committees and monitoring cells would be formed at different levels,” said Bhattacharya.

The minister added that the workers for the new system would be recruited with the help of the state health department.