JAMMU, FEBRUARY 17(KMW): J&K Chief Secretary, B B Vyas Saturday chaired the meeting of the Governing Body of State Health Society (J&K), National Health Mission (NHM) to review the status and performance on health outcomes.
Principal Secretary, Health & Medical Education, Dr Pawan Kotwal, Mission Director, NHM, J&K, Director Family Welfare, J&K, Director Health Services, Kashmir, Director Health Services, Jammu, Principal Government Medical College, Srinagar, Principal Government Medical College, Jammu and other senior officers were present in the meeting.
Chief Secretary appreciated the performance of the state in the recently released “Healthy States, Progressive Indiaâ€Report of the NITI Aayog wherein Jammu and Kashmir has been ranked among the top three States in terms of annual incremental performance showing the maximum gains in improvement of health outcomes such as Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR), Under-five Mortality Rate (U5MR), full immunization coverage, institutional deliveries, and People Living with HIV (PLHIV) on Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART).
Chief Secretary observed that Health Department needs to further improve so as to achieve a rapid transformation in the health systems and population health outcomes.
He also stressed on working out the possibilities of having a Health Intelligence and Correctional Units tasked with collecting information/intelligence regarding disease incidence and its spread, vulnerability and other aspects. He said Health Department should also look into other States and adopt one among the best models for health care data collection, its coverage and management, so that the high quality, credible and reliable data is available with the health department.
Chief Secretary stressed on adopting Bio-Metric Attendance System across all 24×7 healthcare institutions with directions to the Directors of Health Services to ensure submission of a compliance report in this regard within a month. He also stressed on further improving the overall sanitation situation and medical waste disposal across all healthcare institutions in the state.
Mission Director, NHM, J&K presented a detailed overview in regard to the performance on health outcomes, key health indicators, maternal and child health across the state. He also spoke about the new initiatives being undertaken in the health sector in the year 2017-18.
He said among the new initiatives 18 diagnostic services are being provide free of cost in District Hospitals, Community Health Centres, 12 at PHCs and 5 at Sub-Centres (SCs). He said 75 SCs are being up-graded as Health & Wellness Centres in 6 identified districts namely, Udhampur, Doda, Jammu, Pulwama, Kulgam and Kupwara besides MoHFW, GoI has started Population Based Screening for Common Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs) including hypertension, diabetes and cancer in 100 districts of the country including 6 districts from J&K viz Jammu, Udhampur, Doda, Anantnag, Baramulla and Kupwara.
