Center’s thrust in NE’s health sees Nagaland get big upgrade

• Construction / upgrade: 176 public, community & sub health centers
• Details about financial outlay awaited

Al Ngullie
Dimapur, August 12

As a part of the central government’s push to augment healthcare services in the northeastern states, the government has ‘sanctioned’ approval for the construction and / or upgrading at least 170 health centers across Nagaland for the year.
The magnitude of financial outlay could not be confirmed at this time. Nonetheless, available central resources showed on Wednesday, August 12, that the push for construction of health centers in Nagaland–among other north eastern states–entail a considerable number of health care centers to be constructed.
The number of infrastructure to be set up is considerable. A central minister said on Tuesday that the center has accorded sanction for the construction of 176 Community Health Centers (CHC), Public Health Centers (PHC) and Sub-Health Centers (SHC) across Nagaland. Out of it, there are 148 sub-health centers for the state; 9 are community health centers while 19 are public health centers.
Union Minister for Health JP Nadda told the Rajya Sabha in New Delhi on Tuesday that various initiatives were being undertaken as a part of the center’s push to enhance health care services in the northeast regions. Among the initiative was a thrust in the infrastructural sector the minister the upper house.
There are a number of initiatives that the central ministry is taking to “ensure that the north-east states come at par with the national average,” the minister said.
Some of the initiatives that the government of India has been taking so far: Under the National Health Mission (NHM), ‘mobility support’ is being provided to strengthen supportive supervision. Likewise, there is in place an alternate vaccine delivery mechanism from the last-cold-chain-point in public or community health centers.
Another initiative is an incentive to health workers in their mobilization efforts, Nadda said incentives are being provided to Accredited Social Health Activists to aid in mobilizing beneficiaries. So also, the minister told the house that incentives are also being provided to the accredited health activists to engage in full immunization of children in the states.
Also, the government of India has conducted four rounds of “Mission Indradhanush” in 33 high-focus districts of the northeast states. The ‘focus’ targets areas that have shown partial immunization or no- immunization at all. During these rounds, 5.6 lakh children and 0.53 lakh pregnant women were vaccinated in north east states, JP Nadda said.
Likewise, the government of India is providing financial support to the states and union territories to enable them to strengthening or upgrade their healthcare infrastructure. The assistance is based on the proposals submitted by the states in their Programme Implementation Plans, the minister said.
The approvals for healthcare facilities are given in accordance with the norms of population assessment and case-load of the health facilities.
The population norms for setting up of public health facilities in the hilly/tribal and difficult areas have been relaxed, Nadda said. They are as given here:

Health Facility Plain Areas Tribal/Hilly areas
Sub Centre 1 per 5000 1 per 3000
Primary Health Centre 1 per 30000 1 per 20,000
Community Health Centre 1 per 1.20,000 1 per 80,000

Likewise, the central government has ‘sanctioned’ at least 170 CHCs, PHCs and 148 sub centers for Nagaland, among other eight north-east states. Assam, Manipur, and Tripura led the pack with the having the highest number of health centers in the north east region.
The status of new construction and up gradation works sanctioned under National Rural Health Mission to the north eastern states as on March, 2015:

Number of sanctioned construction of health centers

S. No State CHC PHC Other than SHC SHC
1. Assam 116 o 215 2876
2. Arunachal Pradesh 1 3 0 31
3. Manipur 0 21 0 227
4. Meghalaya 0 5 0 126
5 Mizoram 0 0 0 20
6. Nagaland 9 19 0 148
7. Sikkim 2 2 0 13
8. Tripura 0 25 0 406

However, the minister’s response showed that the ministry has so far not ‘sanctioned’ any upgrade for renovation or upgrade of the health centers in Nagaland, or at least not so till March 2015.
Available records show that Nagaland is the only state from among the eight north eastern states that have not been sanctioned assistance to upgrading her health centers. Among the lowest, Mizoram has received sanction to upgrade or renovate at least five community health centers though.
The minister also offered updates about the ‘Forward Linkage Scheme’ which supports strengthening and upgrading secondary and tertiary level health infrastructure in respect of the north-east states. The scheme was introduced in the 11th Plan of the financial year 2007-2012. It is funded from likely savings from other health schemes, the minister told the Rajya Sabha.