Timely training of primary-level doctors can help face the scourge of non-communicable disease that threatens the country and its citizens today
As India aspires to achieve the status of an economic superpower, the country needs to maintain good health of its vast population. In addition, when the health aspect comes into play, the role of doctors becomes all the more important. The ailing primary healthcare set-up in India has failed to keep pace with latest developments, thereby increasing the load on tertiary centre. Initially, the primary healthcare system was seen as a guard against preventing the burden of diseases to an advanced stage and to get preventive and cost-effective treatment. However, gradually, that role became redundant with the lack of trained and qualified physicians. Hence, the entire burden fell on hospitals in cities and urban areas.
According to the World Health Organisation’s (WHO) 2018 data, non-communicable diseases kill 41 million people each year globally. The WHO statistics further revealed that 15 million people aged between 30 and 69 years die due to non-communicable diseases every year. And most of these premature deaths occur in low and middle income countries, who focus more on treating infectious diseases and remain ignorant of non-communicable diseases. A major hurdle in tackling them is the lack of trained physicians at the primary healthcare level where diseases can be prevented and detected early and patients can be given timely treatment. Major kinds of non-communicable diseases responsible for early deaths include heart attacks and stroke, cancers, chronic respiratory diseases, asthma and diabetes.
Upgrade knowledge of primary healthcare doctors: Rural physicians play a key role in the initial emergency situations. It has been repeatedly suggested that primary healthcare doctors should receive basic training in providing emergency care in communities who reside far away from regional support services. Also, with diseases evolving constantly, doctors in the rural health set-up are unable to cope with the patients’ expectations as they remain unequipped to treat new diseases due to insufficient knowledge or training. There is a dire need to train rural physicians. Further, early detection of diseases causing epidemics, especially non-communicable diseases including diabetes, hypertension, will be of help. Timely re-education and training of doctors will also help in reducing the burden of patients on Tier-I and Tier-II hospitals.
Online doctor training: As technology advances in the medical field, a lot of other options can be explored to train physicians in remote and rural areas. For doctors having little time to venture out, if information is made available to them on their fingertips, it can help train them. This apart, organising regular seminars and workshops can be useful.
With technology touching the sky, upgradation of knowledge has become a reality for doctors through cloud-based technology where specialists share their know-how about latest developments in medical research and drugs invention. Most of these tutorials provide free access to content where doctors can grasp content either through their smartphones or other internet-linked devices. This online exercise is beneficial in a way that it helps doctors hone their skills to provide better healthcare. The process of training doctors online serves the purpose of improved healthcare across the country.
Incentivise primary healthcare doctors: Most doctors, both private and Government, avoid working in non-urban centres citing lack of medical infrastructure, safety and sanitation issues. Though the Government has made several efforts to ensure doctors work in rural areas, there has been little success. Instead of adopting coercive measures, focus should be on recruiting doctors and incentivising them with both monetary benefits and improved working conditions. Such measures will go a long way in encouraging them to work in rural areas and retrain themselves to better serve the rural communities.
Primary-level doctors: In the Government’s flagship health insurance scheme, Ayushman Bharat, stress was laid on primary health centres. The Government plans to upgrade Primary Health Centres (PHC) into Health and Wellness Centers (HWC). However, the lack of sufficient health-related infrastructure at PHCs may not drive the Government’s well-thought programme. For this mammoth insurance scheme to succeed, the Government must make efforts to re-educate and upskill doctors at the primary level. For this purpose, the Government can tie up with private players who may be willing to help retrain physicians. It is now time for the Government to rope in private players so that our doctors can provide quality and affordable healthcare to our vast population.
(The writer is CEO of a leading healthcare organisation)
