Doctors Association Kashmir (DAK) today pitched for “mohalla clinics” in Kashmir that would offer healthcare to people at doorstep.President DAK Dr Nisar ul Hassan in a statement said that mohalla clinics would bring healthcare delivery services to underserved and unserved.These community clinics would provide better primary health care coverage and reduce the burden on tertiary care hospitals.They will provide consultations, diagnostic tests, and medicines to people in their neighborhoods’.This will be a paradigm change where instead of patients going to hospitals, medicare will come to them.Senior citizens will be particularly benefitted who are unable to go to hospitals.Clinics in neighborhood will reinvent the age old bond between doctors and patients that is so essential for patient satisfaction and adherence to treatment.There is ample evidence that comfort and convenience of home environment allow patients to recover faster.
With abysmal primary health care, more often than not, patients end up going to tertiary care hospitals even for basic health care needs.More than 90% of patients who throng to these hospitals can be treated in these clinics freeing tertiary care doctors to take care of more critical cases.These clinics will help to prevent sickness and illness that would reduce the disease burden in the community.They will be referral links between community and tertiary care hospitals that would bring huge relief to patients.This system is in practice at Delhi and has been running successfully for past two years.The health programme has been praised by “Lancet” medical Journal which in its report has said that Delhi’s mohalla clinics are offering key advantage to the beneficiaries.With its popularity, other states are replicating the model.Under the prevailing conditions, it is all the more important for Kashmir and needs immediate legislative push.(GNS)