The poor response from private doctors to report tuberculosis notification has left the health authorities to start drives with monetary benefit and issue warning letters. To meet the target for complete elimination of tuberculosis (TB) by 2025, India has put in place a national strategic plan for 2017-2025. As per the plan, an estimated notification of around 30 lakh cases, including 15 lakh from private practitioners, was targeted for 2018.
Dr ND Deshmukh, chief of state TB demonstration and training centre (STDC), said, “Seeing a poor response from private doctors even after issuing warning, we have started a pilot programme where doctors who notify us with their TB cases will receive a reward of Rs 500-Rs 1,000. The project started last month in Satara district received positive response as the detection rate which was hardly 40 new cases per month, shot up to 1,289 cases in just one month. We will soon start similar programme in Pune, Solapur and Kolhapur and extended in to entire state from next year.”
As per the 2018 national data released by a central tuberculosis division (CTD) source, 17 lakh cases have been notified till November 21, and the figure shared by private practitioners is only 4,23,762.
The case detection drive launched by Maharashtra authorities has received poor response from private practitioners. Dr P Jogewar, tuberculosis head of Maharashtra and joint director health services of the state, said, “Hardly 25-35 per cent of private doctors have contributed towards the notifications this year. We have been able to detect only 100-180 cases per lakh population against the 2018 target of 204 cases per lakh population. Of these new cases too, major notifications have been received from public health practitioners representing government health sector.”
{{/usCountry}}The case detection drive launched by Maharashtra authorities has received poor response from private practitioners. Dr P Jogewar, tuberculosis head of Maharashtra and joint director health services of the state, said, “Hardly 25-35 per cent of private doctors have contributed towards the notifications this year. We have been able to detect only 100-180 cases per lakh population against the 2018 target of 204 cases per lakh population. Of these new cases too, major notifications have been received from public health practitioners representing government health sector.”
{{/usCountry}}The health official said that apart from holding sensitisation workshops, the administration also plans to send warning letters to doctors who fail to send their figures to help in the TB elimination programme.
Deshmukh said that authorities have started collecting data of chest physicians in the state, laboratories that diagnose TB cases and pharmacists that cater to TB patients. “The data will help us in conducting an active surveillance where in case if somebody of these misses to send us the required data on TB, a penalty and jail term will be initiated against them,” said Deshmukh.
The annual figure till November 2018
In Maharashtra, the total TB notifications received from public sector is 1,11,459 and 45, 265 from private sector
In Pune, the figure from public department is 2,295 and private doctors (442), while the data is public department (5,807) and private doctors (2,292) from rural areas.