Thiruvananthapuram: In an attempt to bring patients back into government hospitals, the Pinarayi Vijayan-led Kerala government has recommitted itself to distribute free medicines for non-communicable diseases, diabetes and hypertension, state health secretary Rajeev Sadanandan told News18 on Friday.
"We were already providing free medicines for non-communicable diseases in primary health care," said Sadanandan, "We're making the system more watertight now."
This, the state aims to do through revamping and strengthening its primary health care facilities, as announced in the state budget on March 3.
The state budget focusses on the Aardram Mission that will give "shape to a public health movement cantered at several Primary Health Centres (PHCs)." The "major thrust" of this mission, launched in February this year, said Sadanandan, is to convert 170 PHCs to Family Health Centres, in a pilot phase. For this, 510 additional doctors and nurses -- one doctor and two nurses per centre -- will be hired by the state. "Thus a primary health level, based on defensive method to control infectious diseases and lifestyle diseases, will be created to provide free treatment to lifestyle diseases" announced in the budget. The free medicines are required for the pharmacological management of these diseases.
Sadanandan pointed out that only 34 percent of people in Kerala accessed care in government facilities while the rest still went to private hospitals or clinics. The reason for this, he said, according to the National Family Health Service, was that people often found government hospitals to be crowded and lacking speciality services. Hence, to bring a majority of people back to government health care the mission will provide specialty services in sub-district or taluka hospitals, and super speciality services, such as cardiology, neurology and nephrology, in district hospitals. For this, an amount of Rs 2,000 crore has been sanctioned for District Taluk and General Hospitals.
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