NRHM AYUSH Booster dose

Rural health sector set to get a booster dose TNN | Sep 7, 2012, 04.31AM IST Article LUCKNOW: After getting delayed for more than five years, the rural health infrastructure in state may witness some improvement as the health and family welfare department has finally decided to link local health streams - Ayurveda, Unani, Sidha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) - with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). The move allows hiring of AYUSH practitioners and purchase of medicines used in these streams at district-level to provide basic minimum health facilities, which at present are in poor state due to shortage of qualified allopathy doctors. In fact, one of the main objective of the NRHM, when launched in 2005, was to revitalize AYUSH, which was traditionally a part of the public health system in rural areas earlier but gradually declined with time. While the AYUSH was introduced in many parts of the country, the objective remained unfulfilled in UP for five years. However, now, as per the provisions of the NRHM, the AYUSH medications would be included in the drug kit of ASHA (accredited social health activist), who creates awareness about health related issues among rural masses. Further, the drugs supplied to health facilities such as primary and community health centers (CHC and PHC) will also include AYUSH medication. Also, in a CHC, two rooms would be provided for AYUSH practitioner and pharmacist as per norms. Moreover, single doctor PHCs would be upgraded to two doctor centres by inducting AYUSH practitioner. The previous government initiated appointment of AYUSH doctors but the effort was marred by the shadow of the scam. "The problem areas have been addressed and we are heading in the right direction," said, NRHM, Mukesh Meshram who has recently issued orders regarding coordination of work for taking AYUSH to the rural areas. This comes a week after the state government formed an elaborate policy for AYUSH which includes its activities and coordinates procurement of medicines. Sources said that till now, there was no specific policy for procurement of alternatives medicines despite strong recommendations from the ministry of health. As per the policy, medicines would be procured at the district level by a committee comprising chief medical officer as member secretary, and district homeopathy officer, regional ayurvedic or unani officer, finance officer at CMO officer and district programme manager NRHM as members. As head of the district healthy committee, district magistrate would be the head of the said committee. The policy has enlisted certain mandatory conditions to be followed for procurement of medicines. The committee should be ensured that at least 60% of the formulations are classical formulation while not more than 40% of the medicines should be patented or proprietary medicines. The committee would be liable to ensure procurement of quality products. For this, the members will have to see that samples from the each batch of the medicine being supplied for government use should be cleared for quality by labs approved by national accredited board for testing and calibrations laboratories or government quality labs. The committee must see that the medicines are procured from manufacturers and not from firms that market it. The price of the medicines should be at par or lower than what is mentioned in employees state insurance corporation, central government health scheme, Tamil Nadu medical services corporation or central government agencies. The committee will also see that the shelf life of the medicines should be at least 75% from the date of procurement. Also, date of manufacturing should not be older than six months. The TOI