NEWS – Door-to-door health screening under Gruha Arogya to be launched soon

GRUHA AROGYA

• Testing for non-communicable diseases for people aged 30 years
• First phase of screenings and drug procurement to begin in eight districts, including Ramanagara and Dakshina Kannada
• Funded by the National Health Mission (NHM)
• Who will do the screening: Teams of two to four people, including a community health officer (CHO), ASHA workers, and primary healthcare officers (Members of Health and Welfare Centre (HWC))
• Duration: 16 weeks
• What the teams do:
  • Visit 20 homes each on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – Cover nearly 1,000 homes
  • Raise awareness about hypertension, diabetes, and cervical, breast and mouth cancers
• What if any kind of disease is detected:
  • If the officers detect the possibility of cancer among residents, they will be referred to the nearest community health centre or taluk hospital for confirmation and further course of treatment
  • People with suspected cases of diabetes and hypertension will receive teleconsultation from doctors, and if confirmed, medication for three months
• How would they be tracked:
  • CHOs will update any positive cases on the NCD (Non-Communicable Diseases) portal with their ABHA IDs to create a database of people with these diseases and help them access the necessary medicines
  • They will also put up colour-coded Gruha Arogya stickers outside homes, which will also indicate the health status of the residents.
• All the health officers will be trained in phases, beginning with the state-level trainings in December