Iv.National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE)

iv.National Programme for Health Care of the Elderly (NPHCE)

Introduction

The National ProgrammeforHealth Care of the Elderly (NPHCE) was introduced by the Government of India to improve the health status of the elder people. The programme was initiated in the year 2011 with the aim to improve the health status of the elder people in Sikkim.

Countries with large populations such as India have a large number of people now aged 60 years or more. The population over the age of 60 years has tripled in the last fifty years in India and will relentlessly increase in the near future. According to the 2001 census, there were 75.93 million Indians above the age of sixty years; of them 38.22 million were males and 37.71 million were females. Seeing the above figure, the challenge is not only to add further years to life, but more importantly add life to years to ensure that the elder people live full, enriching and productive lives.

The Vision of the NPHCE is:

1. To provide accessible, affordable, and high quality long-term, comprehensive and dedicated care services to an ageing population.
2. To promote the concept of Active and Healthy Ageing;
3. To build framework to create an enabling environment for “ a society for all ages”,
4. To create new architecture for ageing.

Objectives of NPHCE are

1. To provide an easy access to promotional, preventive, curative and rehabilitative services to the elderly through community based primary healthcare approach.
2. To identity health problem in the elderly and provide appropriate health interventions in the community with a strong referral backup support.
3. To build capacity of the medical and paramedical professional as well as the caretakers within the family for providing healthcare to the elderly.
4. To provide referral services to the elderly patients through district hospitals,PHCs etc.
5. Convergence with National Rural HealthMission, AYUSH and other departments like Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

Report on NPHCE 2011-12

The World Health Day was celebrated on 7th April 2012 with the theme “Ageing & Health: Good Health Adds Life to Years”.The World Health Day celebration was attended by closed to 500 participants which included policy makers, Bureaucrats, Medical officers and representatives of panchayats, NGOs, Religious and community based organizations and associations delivering on the performance and road map for future initiative to fulfill Mission Healthy Sikkim for elderly.The National Programme for the Health Care of Elderly is running full fledgedly in two districts i.e. South and East. Weekly health services in geriatric clinics are being conducted and house to house services are also being provided for elderly people by the health workers. Under the geriatric clinic,the elderly are provided free consultation, medicines and screenings etc. Under this programme, the Health Department of Sikkim has also constructed 10 bedded geriatric wards in the East and South districts of the state of Sikkim.

In convergence with CATCH programme it is attempted to do thorough checkup of all elderly population and about 23,104 elderlypopulationshas undergone thoroughhealthcheckupout of the total elderly population of 36,460.Through health checkup including Random Blood Sugar, Blood Pressure, high cholesterol,anemia,urea and creatinne.