The Karnataka Health Vision report has emphasised the need for chalking out district health programmes. Every district health administration should be able to provide comprehensive preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative, palliative, laboratory, telemedicine services to its population through implementation of health schemes, stated the report that was released recently.
“Currently, the policies, programmes, action plans, guidelines and directives generally flow from top to bottom, being formulated in national and State capitals and implemented in a district. It is well acknowledged that the involvement of a district team in planning health and welfare activities are generally limited. If local people are not engaged, local data is not available and local implementation does not happen, the impact is likely to be lesser,” stated the report.
Former director of NIMHANS G. Gururaj, who is the chairman of the Vision Group, told The Hindu on Monday that a district is the nucleus of all health, welfare and development programmes. “Developing district programmes covering a population of approximately 2.5 million is possible, feasible, sustainable and manageable from an administrative viewpoint with decentralisation mechanisms. Focussing on a district, and developing that as a hub of implementation activities for completeness, coverage and quality is achievable and advantageous as it helps in improving health of local populations,” Dr. Gururaj said.
