Free TB treatment plan a hit in Mumbai, ministry to replicate project in other cities
Of the newly notified cases from the private sector, 6,882 have already started their free TB treatment
A year after the Ministry of Health And Family Welfare (MoHFW) introduced the pilot project to offer free tuberculosis (TB) treatment for city patients, it has come to the fore that a significant 6,882 tuberculosis patients have been benefited by the service.
With the success of the pilot project in Mumbai, a similar
programme has now been launched at Nagpur and the ministry plans
to start it in several other cities in India as well. Anyone can
avail this service, provided they go to a doctor who is
registered under the programme.
According to data
gathered from the Mumbai TB cell under the Revised National
Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), 10,675 new patients have
registered under the system, of which 656 are patients with
multi-drug resistant TB.
Of the newly notified cases
from the private sector, 6,882 have already started their free
TB treatment.
Till now, the government funded-RNTCP
only catered to patients coming to public hospitals. But by
roping in private nursing homes, clinics and hospitals to
provide free treatment to patients, the ministry expects to
reduce the high dropout rate in long-term treatment.
Additionally,
experts said the government will be in a better position to
frame future policies with more accurate data on TB from both
public and private sectors.
The programme, called
Private Practitioner Interface Agency (PPIA), was started in
August, 2014, under the civic body’s supervision. In a
year, 130 hospitals and nursing homes, 134 chemists and 102
private testing laboratories have been registered under the
scheme.
“The system is very efficient. If a
patient goes to a doctor registered with the PPIA and tests
positive for TB, the doctor issues him vouchers for x-ray and
medicines. The chemists and labs provide free medication or
diagnostic tests when the patient produces the voucher.
The
government then reimburses the chemists and labs. The patient is
assured hassle-free treatment,” said Dr Daksha Shah, head
of TB Control Unit in Mumbai.
Since August 2014, the government has spent Rs 70 lakh on
subsidies for diagnostics and more than Rs 1 crore on subsidies
for anti-TB drugs.
Under the programme, a patient
only has to pay the private doctor’s consultation fee. The
only drawback of the programme, however, is that it does not
cater to second-line TB treatment.
“Multi-drug
resistant patients will have to get registered in RNTCP for free
treatment,” said Shah.
Explaining the need to
involve private sector in TB control, Dr Shibu Vijayan from NGO
Parth, which partnered with the Brihanmumbai Municipal
Corporation (BMC0) for the entire programme, said people prefer
going to a private doctor for treatment instead of a public
hospital.
“To reduce abandonment of treatment,
free medicines are necessary as treatment of TB can take a year
or more and several do not have the spending capacity.”
He added that initially the programme faced challenges of
payment and reimbursement delays.
“We then
switched to electronic records, which reduced paperwork and gave
real-time data,” he said.
The PPIA is currently
functional in 19 wards in Mumbai that have been seeing high
occurrences of the disease. The civic body is also in the
process of expanding it to all wards across Mumbai.
While
the programme has been largely successful, Shah added that the
current challenge remains to rope in more private institutions
and doctors.
“More doctors have to be aware of
the programme and register under the prescribed scheme. Only
then can we aim to convert the entire population,” she
said.
Source:
The Indian Express
