WB Govt gets Rs 750 cr grant from DFID to restructure state primary health

Joy Roy Chaudhury - Kolkata

Primary healthcare might just get the required boost in West Bengal, with the government launching a five-year health improvement and investment programme with a Rs 750 crore (100 million Pound) financial grant from United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID). The programme designed under the health sector reform plan of the government will cater to the rural mass in particular.

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, the State Chief Minister unveiled this programme. Christened as ‘Health Systems Development Initiative’ (HSDI), the plan is in sync with the Union government’s National Health Policy under the 10th five-year plan.

The state healthcare delivery system caters to 70 per cent of Bengal’s population and almost 90 per cent in the villages. The programme will attempt to improve healthcare at the primary level. Six relatively backward districts, Malda, Purulia, Murshidabad, Birbhum, North and South Dinajpur will get priority under this project.

Bhattacharjee informed that the government had also discussed the need for improvement in the health sector with the World Bank, with whose support the five-year programme could be made stronger. “DFID will fund the project in phases. The government on its part has promised to monitor the programme’s implementation,” said Suma Chakrabarti, permanent secretary of DFID, UK.

Under the programme, the budget for procuring drugs at the primary healthcare centers will be doubled. The block primary health centers will be upgraded to that of rural hospitals. Outdoor services will be provided in areas like Jhargram, Purulia and Bankura. The programme will also cover Sundarbans. By 2010, the situation would improve substantially, he hoped.

The project will also focus IMR and MMR by one-third, increasing institutional deliveries and child immunization. A key thrust area in the project would be to “reduce the level of absenteeism, among the frontline and health staff by 50 per cent over the next five years and fill-up 90 per cent vacancies at the primary health centers and block primary health centers”.