New Delhi. In order to meet any immediate threat to be posed by Covid 19 pandemic in the future, the Union Cabinet chaired Prime Minister Narendra Modi has approved a new scheme ‘India COVID-19 Emergency Response & Health System Preparedness Package: Phase-II’ amounting to Rs. 23,123 crore for FY 2021-22.
This scheme aims to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management, with the focus on health infrastructure development including for Paediatric Care and with measurable outcomes, an official release said.
The Phase-II of the Package has Central Sector (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) components.
Under the Central Sector components,Support would be provided to Central Hospitals, AIIMS, and other Institutions of National Importance under DoHFW (at VMMC & Safdarjung Hospital, Delhi, LHMC & SSKH, Delhi, RML, Delhi, RIMS, Imphal and NEIGRIMS, Shillong, PGIMER, Chandigarh, JIPMER, Puducherry and AIIMS Delhi (existing AIIMSs) and new AIIMSs under PMSSY) for repurposing 6,688 beds for COVID management.
National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) would be strengthened by providing Genome Sequencing machines, besides sanctioning Scientific Control room, Epidemic Intelligence Services (EIS) and INSACOG Secretariat support.
Support would be provided for implementation of Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) in all the District Hospitals of the Country (presently, it is implemented only in 310 DHs).
All district –hospitals would implement HMIS through NIC developed E-Hospital and CDAC developed E-Shushrutsoftwares. This will be the biggest impetus for implementation of the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) at the DHs.
This support includes the support provided to the District Hospitals towards augmentation of the hardware capacity.
Support would also be provided for expanding the National Architecture of eSanjeevani Tele-consultation platform to provide upto 5 lakhs tele-consultations per day from the present 50,000 Tele-consultations per day.
This includes support to the States/UTs to enable tele-consultations with the COVID patients at the COVID Care Centres (CCCs) by strengthening Hubs for eSanjeevani Tele-consultation in all the districts of the country.
Support would also be provided for IT interventions, including strengthening the Central War room at DoHFW, strengthening Country’s COVID-19 Portal, 1075 COVID help lines and COWIN platform.
Under the CSS components, the efforts are aimed at strengthening district and sub district capacity for an effective and rapid response to the pandemic.
States/UTs would be supported to Create Paediatric units in all 736 districts and also, to establish Paediatric Centre of Excellence (PaediatricCoE) in each State/UT, (either in Medical Colleges, State Govt. Hospitals or Central Hospitals such as AIIMS, INIs, etc) for providing Tele-ICU services, mentoring and technical hand-holding to the District Paediatric units.
Augment 20,000 ICU beds in public healthcare system out of which 20% will be Pediatric ICU beds.
