As part of “Ayushman Bharat Campaign”, joint secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoFHW) and nodal officer for Arunachal Pradesh & Nagaland, Rajiv Manjhi visited Ayushman Bhavah health mela at community health centre Medziphema, organized by CHC Medziphema in collaboration with Nagaland Institute of Medical Science and Researches on Friday.
Manjhi and his team, who were on two-day visit to Nagaland, said that the objective of the visit was to ensure that people of the country receive all the health benefits, and Ayushman, ABHA card was available to every eligible citizens in Nagaland.
He added that eligible person who faced issues to register, should be taken up and resolve in order to ensure that common people avail all the benefits implemented by the central government. Manjho also urged the health department to attend the issues and ailments faced by the common people.
Dwelling on the health Mela, he pointed out that the mela was organized to treat non- communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, leprosy etc, mentioning that earlier, Nagaland did not have any record of leprosy cases but at present reported some cases.
Therefore, the joint secretary noted that it was a matter of concern for health department and urged them to identify such cases, diagnosed the patients and put on treatment.
Manjhi also said that he was not aware of blood bank facilities in the state, but hoped that existing blood banks would accept more units. He also said that Nagaland was one of the least pledge organ donor state among the country and encouraged to donate organs and blood.
CMO Dimapur Dr. Limatula Aier, in her short speech informed that there was an acute shortage of specialist doctor for opiod treatment and in regard to Ayushman beneficiaries, the sanitation workers from non-indigenous in the state were finding difficult to obtain and requested to look into the matter.
She said Ayushman card was everyone’s rights and requested the central government to provide all the required assistance.
Aier also lamented that ensuring Ayushman card to all the population was a concern since Nagaland population consist of mixed indigineous population.
She said that there were some problems in generating the cards as their names have been mismatched after social economic census 2011. She also mentioned internet problem was another reason for not being able to generate cards in expected numbers.
CMO also highlighted about several problems faced by the medical department such as lack of man power, for which the department could not provide all the medical services required by the citizens.
She said minor operations could be done by “any medical officer in CHC” but for major issues the citizens have to travel to Dimapur or other neighboring state for treatment as most of the common people cannot afford. She also pointed out that Ayushman card and the packages were not enough to cover such expenses and therefore requested the Central government to take up the matter.
The weekly Mela service exhibition included information education communication under medical department, tuberculosis screening, leprosy screening, integrated counselling & testing centre and dermatology.
The programme was chaired by medical officer Medziphema, Dr. Temjensunep. Around 60 people attended the programme and more than 200 registered at the mela.