Bengaluru: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai inaugurated Namma Clinics loosely modelled on Delhi’s Mohalla Clinics to plug some of the glaring gaps in the health delivery system ahead of the 2023 assembly elections.
“In the earlier days, in urban and rural areas, there were dispensaries where resident MBBS doctors used to treat people for fever, cold and carry out small tests. Earlier when we were young, we used to go to ‘dawakhanas’ (clinics) but now there aren’t any and everyone goes to big hospitals. So these Namma Clinics will give primary treatment to the poor,” Bommai said Wednesday, after the launch of 114 such clinics in the first phase in the state.
Announced in the budget in March, the scheme is aimed at providing primary healthcare services to the vulnerable sections of the society for which 437 such centres will be opened across the state. Polls are due by May in Karnataka.
As many as 243 clinics will be functioning under the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) area alone. The project is likely to cost Rs 150 crore to the exchequer.
Health minister Dr K. Sudhakar said each of these Namma Clinics will cater to a population of 10,000-20,000 people. “These clinics are targeted at providing primary healthcare services to vulnerable sections of the society especially slum dwellers, daily wage workers and other economically weaker sections of society,” he said.
Though Karnataka is considered one of the more prosperous states, the fault lines in public healthcare were exacerbated in the Covid pandemic during which government and private hospitals, like most other states, were unable to handle demand for beds even in cities like Bengaluru.
At the peak of the pandemic, former chief ministers B. S. Yediyurappa, Siddaramaiah and H.D. Kumaraswamy rushed to private hospitals when they tested positive.
In August, a report released by the government-appointed Karnataka Health Vision Group found that healthcare facilities were unevenly distributed leaving large parts of the state uncovered. North Karnataka fared poorly in this regard, it said.
The Namma Clinics will offer 12 types of health services that include postnatal and neonatal care, childhood and adolescent care, immunisation services, common and minor ailment care, diabetes, blood pressure management, and oral ailments among others.
The relatively basic range of services offered in these clinics is unlikely to reduce dependency on bigger hospitals for those seeking treatment for more serious health-related issues.
“GDP (read, GSDP) doesn’t mean anything if you don’t put it back into welfare,” Prasanna Saligram, a public health researcher at Jan Swasthya Abhiyan (Karnataka), told The Print.
According to the Economic Survey 2021-22, the public expenditure ratio, social allocation ratio, social priority ratio and human expenditure ratio (the sum of all three ratios) are below the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) prescribed standards.
“Karnataka’s performance on these measures for the last 6 years (2015-16 to 2020-21) reveals that social sector expenditure as a percentage of GSDP has declined from 8.03 per cent in 2015-16 to 5.10 per cent in 2020-21,” the economic survey said.
As per the National Family Health Survey-5 (2020-21), 65 per cent of children aged between 6-59 months are anaemic, its urban sex ratio at birth is the fourth worst in the country and its infant mortality rate nearly three times as much as neighbouring Kerala.
Saligram also said that the government was unable to fill up large numbers of vacancies in public health facilities and is trying to ‘politicise’ the scheme with the elections in mind but with little focus on ‘preventive and promotive’ care.
(Edited by Tony Rai)
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