The Union Cabinet on Thursday approved a Rs 23,123-crore Covid-19 package to improve health infrastructure over the next nine months with a special focus on upgrading the medical facilities at 736 districts as the government gears up to tackle the third wave of the pandemic as and when it comes.
Announced by the new health minister Mansukh Mandaviya, the package would involve augmenting 20,000 ICU beds in the public healthcare system, out of which 20 per cent will be paediatric ICU beds.
Moreover, the scheme would entail creation of paediatric units in each of the 736 districts and seeks to establish paediatric Centre of Excellence in each state or Union Territory for providing tele-ICU services, mentoring and technical hand-holding to the district paediatric units.
In addition, support would be provided to central hospitals and institutes of national importance like AIIMS, PGI Chandigarh, NEIGRIHMS Shillong, and JIPMER Puducherry to repurpose 6,688 beds for Covid management.
Mandaviya said under the new package, the Centre would provide Rs 15,000 crore, while states would contribute Rs 8,123 crore. The scheme would be implemented jointly in every district with an aim of improving medical infrastructure at primary and district health centres.
The package comes at a time when several experts opined that a third wave would be inevitable, but it is difficult to anticipate its scale and timing. Several disease prediction models have predicted a third wave around November.
The health minister said storage facilities for oxygen and medicines would be created at district level. Other components of the package would be adding 8,800 more ambulances, engaging undergraduate and post-graduate medical interns and final year MBBS, BSc and GNM nursing students for effective Covid-19 management. The Centre would support the states to carry out at least 21.5 lakh tests daily.
Flexible support would be extended to the districts for meeting the requirement of essential medicines for Covid-19 management, including creation of district-wise buffer stock.
"There are still 73 districts where the test positivity ratio is more than 10 per cent. In another 65 districts, the positivity is between 5-10 per cent. District-wise specific measures should be guided by the test positivity rate as much of public health response was guided by test positivity rate during the second surge,” Balram Bhargava, director general at the Indian Council of Medical Research had said earlier this week.
The National Centre for Disease Control would be strengthened with new genome sequencing machines, besides having Scientific Control room and Epidemic Intelligence Services.
For better information flow, hospital management information system will be implemented in every district hospital, whose hardware capacity would be augmented. Currently, the programme is operational in 310 district hospitals.
The Sanjeevani tele-consultation platform would be upgraded to provide up to 5 lakh tele-consultations per day from the present 50,000 tele-consultations.
Some of the experts, however, are of the opinion that the package would not be sufficient, given the poor condition of the healthcare system in small town and rural India. “In Covid-19 pandemic, the government announced a special package of Rs 23,000 crore for nine months (Rs 2,500 crore a month). This is grossly insufficient. The government can and should do more,” tweeted public health researcher Chandrakant Lahariya.