States asked to provide expenditure proposals for Covid response package

Our Reporter
Dimapur, July 15 (EMN): The Union Health Minister has requested all the states and UTs to send their expenditure proposal at the earliest to enable expeditious approval and sanctioning from the Union Government.

The Union Health Minister stated this during a review meeting on preparations under “India Covid-19 Emergency Response and Health Systems Preparedness Package: Phase II” scheme with Health secretaries and senior official of all States and UTs through video conferencing.

The Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister approved the new scheme amounting to INR 23,123 crore (INR 15,000 crore Central share) for the financial year 2021-22 on July 8 and it will be implemented from July 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022.

Phase-II of the Emergency Covid-19 Response Package (ECRP) has Central Sector (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) components, a PIB update stated.

During the review meeting, states and UTs were guided on policies and guidelines from Union Health Ministry on different aspects of Covid management which would help them in strengthening healthcare infrastructure to streamline Covid-19 response.

The meeting focused on the following:

• Need for ramping up test, track, treat and isolate strategy.
• Requirement for scaling up testing capacity, additional beds including for Paediatric care and makeshift hospitals in sub-district levels.
• Ensuring availability of critical drugs, testing kits and PPE
• Enhancing oxygen availability and strengthen home and village/ community isolation centres/ Covid care centres
• Sustaining and enhancing skilled medical and para-medical HR in line with the new guidelines issued by the Union Health Ministry in consultation with National Medical Commission (NMC) and Indian Nursing Council (INC).

The Union Health Minister also advised all the states and UTs to utilise the final year MBBS students, UG interns and PG residents under the supervision of the faculty as per the National Medical Commission Guidelines for providing services of mild Covid management through tele-consultation.

Similarly, final nursing graduates (BSc and GNM) may be utilised for full-time Covid nursing duties at government facilities under the supervision of senior faculty as per the Indian Nursing Council guidelines and support of remuneration or incentives to these human resources for health under the ECRP-II may be leveraged by the States effectively in the times of need, it said.

States were also advised to conduct a quick gap analysis for various infrastructures under ECRP-II including their IT infrastructure readiness.

The union health minister said that all facilities in the district (Covid/non-Covid), Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs), eSanjeevaniOPD, Common Service Centres (CSCs) and other healthcare facilities like sub-centres (SCs), primary health centres (PHCs), community health centres (CHCs) and others are required to be connected with district hospitals.

It was also pointed out that procurement of drugs for effective Covid management is an essential component of ECRP-II; guidelines on procurement and buffer stocks have been already shared with the states which may be adopted for this purpose. Guidance can be tweaked to local needs and states must come up with their own assessments based on stocks and costs involved.

The report stated that this scheme aims to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management with sharp focus on health infrastructure development including paediatric care and with measurable outcomes, which will help in strengthening decentralised public health actions and public health facilities in rural, peri-urban and tribal areas.

The following objectives of ECRP: Phase-II were reiterated at the review meeting:

• Support the states to establish dedicated Paediatric Care Unit in all 736 districts of the country for responding to the needs of paediatric Covid-19 management.
• Support the states to establish Paediatric Centre of Excellence in each state/UT (either in state medical colleges or state hospitals or central hospitals such as AIIMS, Institute of National Importance, etc.) for providing tele-ICU services, mentoring and technical hand-holding to these district paediatric units.
• Increase the availability of ICU beds including 20% paediatric ICU beds as per evolving needs
• Support to states to have 1050 Liquid Medical Oxygen (LMO) storage tanks along with medical gas pipeline system (MGPS) (at least one per district) to augment the availability of medical oxygen in public healthcare system.
• Strengthen tele-consultation platform to provide up to 5 lakh tele-consultation services per day, duly augmenting the availability of spokes and hubs.
• Support the states in implementation of Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) in all the district hospitals, duly strengthening the national architecture.
• Increase access to ambulance services to eliminate delays in transport and referral of Covid-19 patients enhance testing capacity and corresponding supportive diagnostics at the public healthcare facilities, closer to the public
• Support the states to utilise the UG and PG interns, final year MBBS, BSc and GNM nursing students for effective management.