Health Dept far from set goal

What stands out is the poor publicity given to the matter of the Health Day.
“There are more than 60,000 staff providing health services. Yet, the facilities of the Health Department continue to evade the rural poor. The Department has also failed to ensure people get service security and have trust in its service,” rued an officer of the Health and Family Welfare Department.

The commissioner of the Health Department and the director of the National Rural Health Mission considered this matter seriously. They had, in July, submitted to the Deputy Commissioners of 27 districts and officers of all departments the guide for observation of Community Health Day.

They said they received complaints daily from the public and elected representatives that the Department had failed in its mission. “The prominent reason for this are the expectations of the public and the lack of coordination in the health services community.”
The Department is functioning through 8,568 sub-centres, 2,194 primary health centres, 180 community health centres, 27 district hospitals and 10 government medical institute hospitals. Yet, it has not failed in fulfilling the expectations of the citizens nor reaching its goals.

In the backdrop of such conditions, it was decided to observe a community health day to improve the participation of the community in provision of health services. A Community Health Day will be observed twice in 2011-12, once each in August and February.
The guide was published by the Department in order to notify the media regarding the programme, which aims to spread information about health facilities provided, projects and schemes of the Department, facilities available in community health centres as well as the achievements of the Department so far.

The guide, however, fails to mention any kind of publicity measures taken except doctors of several community health centres in the district conducting meetings before hand and inviting dignitaries and mediapersons to the programme on Tuesday through telephone.
A health bulletin should be brought out before observing a special day. There was also no instance of a bulletin being brought out in the district, following instructions in the guide to mention the importance of the day and the role to be played by the public in the programme.

Kolar district: Health statistics

Total population: 15,40,231 (2011 census)
Villages: 1,598
 District hospitals: 2
 Taluk hospitals: 4
Community health centres: 2
 Primary health centres: 59
 24x7 health centres: 43
 Sub-centres: 265
 ASHA workers: 963
 Private medicals institutes: 1
 Village Health and Sanitation Committees: 1,311