Plan to trace private clinic TB patients

“The general complaint of private practitioners is that once they send the TB patients to government-sponsored DOTS provider,they never come back,” said Bharti. They have proposed that they send volunteers from their own medical establishment who can train as DOTS providers and have a DOTS center in their own hospitals and nursing homes. They can still charge fee for consultation but will have to provide the DOTS medicine,provided by the government,free of cost to the patient.

The health officials are also planning to reach out to the private pathologists,where the sputum test for tuberculosis can be done free of cost. Patients who go to private path labs are also not traceable as pathologists are not answerable to the government and their records are not compiled. “Hence we are planning to earmark private pathologists in each town,in collaboration with IMA,” said Bharti.

“We will train path staff for proper sample collection and record maintenance. We will compile these reports to bring out the complete picture of tuberculosis in the state,” said Bharti. The government will also be providing logistics for the test to these labs,including the reagents and slides. Each test kit costs Rs 25. The tests will be done for free.