JOIN USWork on the much-awaited National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) will commence in September in the City. The mission is expected to be a boon for the urban masses.
The work will start after a long wait of seven months following the official launch of NUHM by the then Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Gulam Nabi Azad in January this year.
The City has been granted Rs 24 crore for the implementation of the scheme and Karnataka will be the first state to implement it. BBMP In-Charge Chief Medical Officer Dr Nirmala said that in the preliminary stage, focus would be on providing primary health care, especially for the urban poor, and 70 hospitals in City would be upgraded to address the demand.
“For the first phase, 40 health centres under the Palike limits and 30 other centres under the State’s Department of Health and Family Welfare have been considered. These would be provided with additional staff, equipment and tools that are necessary,” she added. The implementation lies in the hands of both the State Health department and Health department of Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike.
She said a meeting of the executive committee on NUHM would be held later this month where a decision would be taken on the staff requirement. Subsequently, recruitment would begin. BBMP Commissioner M Lakshminarayana said the committee had been constituted to work on the same.
“There were initial delays due to change in the government. Now, it will be taken forward at a fast pace,” he added.
Basic diagnostics too would be made available to the urban masses under NUHM.
In the City, six BBMP hospitals have been listed for the mission. “We have six referral hospitals with hi-tech labs. Under the scheme, basic blood and urine examination would be conducted. In the later stage, we might include MRI, CT Scan and other facilities,” she explained.
The six hospitals are located at Corporation Circle, Banashankari, Hosakerehalli, Srirampuram, Jagjeevan Ram Nagar and Ulsoor. Even as focus is on the urban poor, everyone is entitled to avail these facilities. “It is very tough to have parameters to discriminate who is poor and who is not.
Under the scheme, everyone can avail facilities,” Dr Nirmala said. The Centre has sanctioned Rs 1.11 lakh crore for NUHM to be set up in 779 cities across the country to benefit 7.75 crore urban population living in listed and unlisted slums. According to the guidelines of National Health Mission, the focus will be on the slum population and those working in unorganised sector.
The State has a total slum population of 14,02,971 accounting for 12.7 per cent of the total population.