medical facilities like MOHALLA CLINICS in india in covid 19
Answers
By creating awareness and using their widespread presence in semi-urban clusters to carry out rapid testing, mohalla clinics could have played a decisive role at the primary healthcare level.
Despite various efforts by the government, Delhi continues to be a major hotspot of COVID-19 in India. Many health experts had earlier opined that the Indian healthcare system would soon be overwhelmed. This has becoming evident in Delhi where the pandemic has aggravated the situation and brought the immense pressure on the hospitals to light. As such, most of the shifts in stance and strategy of the Delhi government regarding its policies to combat COVID-19 have delivered only mediocre results so far.
While much cannot be done by the Delhi government in terms of curative care, there is a lot that could have been done when it came to preventive care in fighting the battle against COVID-19. Delhi already has a well-defined three-tier healthcare system with mohalla clinics being the providers of primary health care. These are followed by polyclinics, which form the second tier. Tertiary healthcare is delivered through government hospitals.
This healthcare pyramid, with a continuously improving network of mohalla clinics, and which could have been effectively employed to fight the battle against coronavirus, has been completely ignored. The pressure has fallen on the tertiary tier of government hospitals.