SHILLONG, June 1: The state government is examining the possibility of having facility managers for handling routine healthcare aspects so that doctors can focus on the clinical aspects.
The Union Health Ministry had recently proposed four verticals — specialist, public health, health management, and teaching cadre — at the state, district and block levels.
National Health Mission (NHM) Mission Director, Ram Kumar on Wednesday said the Centre wants medical officers who have been promoted to senior ranks to have exposure to public health.
He said public health is a subject of its own and needs to be learned, pointing out that states with a dedicated cadre are doing extremely well in public health.
“Health being a state subject, the Centre is asking the state to ensure the people who will take up public health leadership positions should be trained in public health,” Kumar said.
He said the state government is seriously looking into this aspect after the experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the framework released by Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the clinical role in healthcare will be separate from the managerial role in order to improve overall efficiency.
States in India should create a multi-disciplinary public health management cadre, the Health Ministry had stated.
“To achieve best utilisation of expertise and talent for ensuring health for all, there is a need to segregate service providers as per clinical and public health functions among various types of cadres with flexibilities as per the functional requirement of the state,” the guidelines said.
Vax hesitancy still an issue
The Health department is facing a challenge due to the reluctance of many people in taking their dose of the COVID-19 vaccine on time after seeing a dip in the number of active cases.
Kumar cautioned that the people cannot be complacent since this was one of the reasons for the surge of cases during the second wave.
“We saw a minor third wave in January and February this year. We had managed to go through it successfully since many had taken their doses of the vaccination,” he said.
The NHM mission director said they are now trying to focus on vaccinating the lowest age group since the vaccination coverage among children is not very good.
“So far, we have only 23% coverage among children from 12 to 14 years. The response is quite good in the urban areas but very low in the rural areas,” he said.
He said the deputy commissioners have been asked to conduct a vaccination campaign in the schools for the school children so that they can be protected.
Kumar said they will carry out an aggressive campaign in the next two months and hope to get positive results. “We will have a review meeting on the vaccination of the under-age group at the minister’s level,” he said.
The COVID-19 vaccination programme in Meghalaya started in January 2021.
Out of 6 lakh households in the state, 4.5 lakh households have been covered by health workers through the door-to-door campaign.
Kumar said health workers have administered the first dose to 70% and the second dose to 60% of the adults.
