expert corner
“GoG is Heading Towards Managing
Health”
PK Taneja, Commissioner of Health, Medical Services & Medical Education, Public Health & Family Welfare, Government of Gujarat, in conversation with eHealth, talks about how the strengthening of infrastructure through patient record system and IT based hospital services is leading to improvement in healthcare issues in Gujarat What is your assessment of the health sector in Gujarat today? The trend of using health indicators like CDR, MMR, IMR and TFR is on a declining phase and this indicates that there is overall improvement in the overall health status of the state. The MMR is reduced from 202 as per SRS (1997-2003) to 148 as per SRS (2007-09). The IMR is reduced from 60 as per SRS 2001 to 48 as per SRS (2009). Crude Death Rate is indeed a good tool for measuring standard of healthcare of the State and lower CDR as compared to well performing states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka shows that Gujarat has excellent healthcare facilities. The state government is fully sensitised and committed to bringing further improvement in these health indicators. Please share with us the Government’s role and initiatives in primary, secondary and tertiary care. What is GDP allocation for health in Gujarat? The state is providing primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare services through reasonably good infrastructure of SCs, PHCs, CHCs, DHs, medical colleges and super specialty institutions with optimal demographic spread all over the state. The health department is taking up many interventions and initiatives like Chiranjeevi Yojana and Bal Sakha Yojana through public-private participation model to address certain constraints in terms of availability of doctors, nurses and paramedics. Further, the gap analysis in terms of availability and shortage of necessary manpower has been done and the same is being addressed on priority basis. The state has added1105
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medical seats, 1210 nursing seats, 1095 physiotherapy seats and 800 dental seats in the last couple of years. 3 new medical colleges with 150 seats each have been set up during the current academic year. There are plans for setting up three more medical colleges having capacity of 150 seats under Gujarat Medical Education & Research Society (GMERS), an autonomous society set up for the purpose. The Total outlay for Health is increased from 1615.51 crores in the year 2008-09 to present outlay of ` 3347.62 crores, registering an increase of 100 percent in last four years. The GDP allocation for health in the State is 0.53 percent in the year 2009-10 and increased up to 0.72 percent in the year 2010-11 What is the government’s role in ensuring ‘Health for All’ in the state? The state is providing comprehensive maternal and child health services like ANC care, institutional delivery, PNC care and immunisation services with Mamta Abhiyan package and through private institutes’ involved in schemes like Chiranjeevi and Bal SakhaYojana. The Mamta Taruni Abhiyan for comprehensive healthcare services was started to take care of adolescent girls. The state has effectively controlled communicable diseases like HIV/AIDS, TB, Leprosy and Malaria with meticulous implementation of National Health programmes like RNTCP, NLEP, NVBCDP, GSACS and NBCP. The state’s success in controlling sickle cell anemia has been feted with the prestigious Prime Minister Excellence award for administration in Public Health Programme. Gujarat is associated with many high-end super-specialty institutes for heart, kidney and cancer treatment.