Scrutinizing Govt Hospitals & CHCs is Part of National Health Mission: Minister

Public health and hospitals being a State subject, it is the responsibility of the States/UTs to regularly scrutinize the functioning of all healthcare facilities including Government hospitals and Community Health Centres (CHCs) to ensure their proper functioning.

The Minister of State (Health and Family Welfare), Shri Ashwini Kumar Choubey stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha.

However, under National Health Mission (NHM), the various mechanisms to improve the functioning of different public health facilities, including CHCs, comprise of regular review meetings, video conferences & field visits of senior officials, promoting performance by setting up benchmarks for service delivery & rewarding their achievements etc.

Through the mechanism of Health Management Information System (HMIS) also functioning of hospitals is assessed. Similarly, guidelines like Indian Public Health Standard(IPHS), National Quality Assurance Standard, Kayakalp, etc. also provide mechanisms to assess the functioning of public health institutions including CHCs.

Similarly, at health facility level, RogiKalyanSamitis (RKSs) are envisaged to act as a forum to improve the functioning and service provisioning, increase participation and enhance accountability, for provision of better facilities to the patients at the level of Primary Health Centres and above.

Further in every district, DISHA(District Development Coordination and Monitoring Committees) are constituted for monitoring of various Centrally Sponsored Schemes in the District. It also includes representatives from PRIs and ULBs.

Availability of the drugs are being monitored through Drug and Vaccine Distribution Management System (DVDMS). DVDMS is a web-based Supply Chain Management System that deals in purchase, supply, distribution and inventory management of various drugs, sutures, surgical and consumable items. It has an inbuilt provision of monitoring and checking the availability of medicine at all facilities at district and state level. DVDMS links various Regional/ District Drug Warehouses (DWH), District Hospitals (DH), their sub stores like Community Health Centres (CHC) and Primary Health Centres (PHC). Moreover, it has the functionality for distribution of drugs to patients, thus enabling tracking of consumption till last mile.

In addition to this, States are encouraged to do prescription audit to improve the quality of care provided by the health facilities and also to ensure prescription of generic and rational use of drugs. Standard Treatment guidelines (STGs) have been developed for ensuring rational use of drugs and preventing all forms of wastages.