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| Screening rural populace for lifestyle diseases in the offing |
| Press Trust of India / New Delhi Jan 15, 2010, 14:18 IST |
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To check the rising cases of non-communicable diseases, the Health Ministry is in the process of setting up a mechanism to screen all people in the 30-40 age group in rural areas for lifestyle diseases like diabetes.
There is an increase in the burden of non-communicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad noted at the the state health secretaries meet here.
"We are in the process of formulating specific schemes to address these concerns. For diabetes, we are working out a strategy for checking all people in the age group of 30-40 years in rural areas for diagnosing potential cases," he said.
He said rural areas will require the option of glucometer to carry out the tests.
Azad also informed the secretaries that the Medical Council of India (MCI) has recently amended the Post Graduate Medical Education Regulations wherein the teacher student ratio has been revised from 1:1 to 1:2 and asked states to expedite more reforms in medical education sector.
The MCI Regulations were amended in order to enable the medical colleges to increase seats in Postgraduate Medical courses, he said.
"I would request all the state governments to send the details of teaching faculty in Government Medical Colleges in their respective States at the earliest, so that the same can be considered for increase of Post Graduate seats in the light of amended PG Regulations," he said.
Azad said though reports have shown encouraging trends in a large number of states, the task ahead was enormous. "We shall have to ensure that people living in the most difficult and remote areas are also able to access public health facilities easily and receive quality health care," he said.
The minister said the state governments should identify backward districts with poor health parameters for focused attention.
The states were also asked to identify health facilities in geographically remote areas that are difficult to access, especially in the hilly states, north-eastern states, and officially recognised tribal pockets across the country, so that a comprehensive package of additional incentives for doctors and health workers could be considered for encouraging them to work in these places.
This needs to be finalised at the earliest and special initiatives required in the difficult and backward districts in order to improve their health indicators, he said.
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