Telangana among toppers in healthcare

Hyderabad: Constant efforts put up by the Telangana state government to strengthen the medical and health services and provide better services to the people have been yielding good results. This progress in strengthening infrastructure and medical facility in the public health sector has earned Telangana 11th rank among all states in overall performance and annual incremental performance. 

A report on "Healthy States, Progressive India” on the rank of states and Union Territories’, released by India's Policy Making Body-  NITI Aayog, put Telangana in the list of ' Achiever' states along with Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Jammu Kashmir, West Bengal and Chhattisgarh.  

The report observed Telangana made good progress in the health sector and will move in the next group of 'Front Runner’ list with sustained efforts, the report observed. At present, Kerala, Punjab and Tamil Nadu are in the list of front runners by achieving goals set in the improvement of health care facilities.

Telangana has been showing incremental progress in providing ART (Anti-Retroviral Treatment) to HIV infected AIDS patients.  In 2014-15, Telangana covered 72.4 per cent and in 2016-17, the state extended ART to 76.1 per cent of the patients. However, it needs to achieve 90 per cent as set the goal by National Health Policy-2017.

Telangana achieved distinction among other states in the country in containing low-birth weight (LBW) among new born. The state successfully reduced the proportion of LBWs new born from 6.1 in 2014-15 to 5.7 in 2015-16.

However, in the neonatal mortality rate (NMR), Telangana was struggling hard in achieving the target of the NMR national policy goal of 16 deaths per 1000 live births by 2025 and 12 deaths per 1000 live births by 2030. Telangana state has reported 23 deaths per 1000 births in 2015. it was 25 in 2014. 

Under five Mortality Rate (U5MR), Telangana would also require providing nutritional status of children, health knowledge of mothers, level of immunization and oral rehydration therapy, access to maternal and child health services, income of the family, and availability of safe drinking water and basic sanitation services. Telangana reported 34 deaths in 2015-15 as against 37 in 2014-15 under U5MR.

 Thanks to “KCR Kits” and improving facilities in the maternity hospitals, the institutional deliveries registered steep hike in the Telangana state. The proportion of institutional deliveries has been increased to 85.4 per cent in 2015-16 from a mere 59.2 per cent.

Shockingly, the full immunization coverage has been reduced to 89.1 per cent from 100 per cent in the state. The immunization programme covers infants between the ages of 9-11 months who have received one dose of BCG, 3 doses of DPT, 3 doses of OPV, and one dose of measles vaccine. The total case of notification rate of tuberculosis (TB) has also been increased.  It was reported 123 cases per one lakh population in 2016 and in 2015 it was 113 cases.  The treatment success rate was 89.6 per cent.

Although the number of cardiac cases were increasing in Telangana, the functional Cardiac Care Units (CCUs) were zero in the districts. A functioning CCU is important for the availability of specialised cardiac care services at the district level and for reducing the workload at tertiary level facilities. In the area of having specialist doctors in the government hospitals, Telangana filled only 55 per cent of the required doctors.

In the category of out-of-pocket (OOP) expenditure per delivery in public sector health facility needs to be reduced in Telangana. It was reported that the OOP expenditure in the state was 4,020 in 2016 despite Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK), and Referral Transport to ensure free delivery at public health facilities were provided. Telangana stood fifth in the highest OOP expenditure in the country.

The functioning of round-the-clock PHCs (Primary Health Care Centres) needs to be streamlined in the Telangana state, which stood 15th positions among the larger states in extending basic package of health services to the community and reducing work load at higher level health care centres.