{"id":102548,"date":"2021-04-21T09:25:13","date_gmt":"2021-04-21T03:55:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=102548"},"modified":"2021-04-21T09:58:08","modified_gmt":"2021-04-21T04:28:08","slug":"importance-of-secondary-level-health-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/importance-of-secondary-level-health-services\/","title":{"rendered":"Importance of Secondary Level Health Services"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Synopsis<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The load on tertiary health services can be reduced by strengthening the secondary level care health services. For rural areas, the focus should be on community health centres and for urban regions, peripheral hospitals at the secondary level.<\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>Background<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Indian health system is generally divided into the primary, secondary and tertiary level.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The second wave of Covid-19 has exposed the deficiencies in the current reactive approach of the government.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People are dying due to a lack of access to treatment facilities rather than inadequate solutions to treat the virus.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Reactive approach<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under this, the government transforms well-performing facilities at the tertiary level into state-of-the-art COVID-19 hospitals.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, many temporary COVID-19 facilities are created by hiring buildings and open spaces providing only beds.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The government has also created many first-line treatment centres under this approach.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This approach is being adopted in the majority of states.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Concerns associated with Reactive approach:<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People are unable to access their routine hospital services from these facilities. Because routine hospitals are turned into COVID facilities.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The temporary structures without adequate infrastructure were unable to cater to the needs of patients in real-time situations.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">First-line treatment centres are failing to generate trust among people and were shut down when the cases went down.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Therefore, many experts are now advising the government to leverage the potential of the secondary level.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\"><strong>Read also- <a href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/ayushman-bharat\/\">Ayushman Bharat<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<h5><b>New Approach of using Secondary Level Health Services<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Under this, the functional facilities at the secondary level can be converted into exclusive COVID-19 care centres. It will be useful to treat those patients who don\u2019t need ICU support.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In rural areas, the Community Health Centre (CHCs) can cumulatively add up to 50000-75000 beds.<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A CHC covers a population of 80,000-1,00,000 in rural areas.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It functions as the first referral unit for curative care services referred from primary health centres (PHCs).<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The PHC (Primary Health Centres) must be strengthened to cater to the needs of people for other curative care services.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In urban areas, states must develop peripheral hospitals at the secondary level within the government sector. Ideally, 100-150 bedded hospitals for every 3 lakh population.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Benefits of the Secondary Level Health Services<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">:<\/span><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Firstly, it will <\/span><b>reduce the workload on tertiary care <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">especially in states like Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, which possess poor health infrastructure.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Secondly, Specialists for these secondary centres can be easily directed from district hospitals or medical colleges. Thereby providing <\/span><b>better feasibility.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thirdly, these new centres can be used for sample collection and vaccine delivery as well. As the centres are<\/span><b> already functional and command a certain level of trust<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Fourthly, post-pandemic, these facilities can return to their normal work and won\u2019t be closed like temporary structures.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5><b>Way Forward:<\/b><\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The states must leverage the potential of this new secondary level approach.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They should provide the secondary level units with sufficient funds and personnel so that they can duly function as COVID-19 care centres.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In a nutshell, we can say that adoption of this new approach will improve delivery potential, augment people&#8217;s trust and contribute to strengthening health services in the long run.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b>Source<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/epaper.thehindu.com\/Home\/ShareArticle?OrgId=GGJ8GH33M.1&amp;imageview=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Hindu\u00a0<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Synopsis:\u00a0The load on tertiary health services can be reduced by strengthening the secondary level care health services. For rural areas, the focus should be on community health centres and for urban regions, peripheral hospitals at the secondary level. Background: The Indian health system is generally divided into the primary, secondary and tertiary level. The second&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/importance-of-secondary-level-health-services\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Importance of Secondary Level Health Services<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10322,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[1289],"class_list":["post-102548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-soc_0","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":16,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1698473070},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102548","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10322"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}