White paper to highlight best practices, strengthen national diabetes programme
Given the rapidly increasing prevalence of the disease, governmental delivery systems at the states and centre alone will not be able to combat increasing threat of non communicable diseases (NCDs) in the country,” said *Dr. Sayeda Hameed*, member of planning commission “We need multi sectoral collaborative efforts to address the present and future challenges posed by NCDs in country wherein every sector needs to share personal responsibility. Plan for the health sector in the 12th five year plan cannot be an isolated one and it needs to be integrated with the plans of all sectors. She was speaking at National NCD Summit in Delhi organized by The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly and Company. The summit, focusing on the theme of “Strengthening Policies for Diabetes Care,” is also supported by the National Programme for Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke (NPCDCS), Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, and the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR).
Currently, more than 61 million people in India have diabetes, compared with 50.8 million last year, an increase of over 12 per cent. By 2030, more than 100 million people in India will likely develop the disease. In addition, the International Diabetes Federation estimates that 9.2 per cent of adults in India have diabetes, making its prevalence second only to China. In 2012, diabetes caused 983,000 deaths in India, the largest contributor of mortality.
Mr. Keshav Desiraju, Secretary Health, expressed the need to have an intermediate level of public healthcare workers beyond the ASHA workers. He added that there should be specific models of public private partnerships evolved with clear identification of roles and responsibilities.
With more and more number of children adapting to modern lifestyle and western eating behavior, prevalence of this disease has taken a huge toll and to address this issue major proposition by Dr. Jagdish Prasad, DGHS, Ministry of Health, Government, was to introduce health education courses at the school level. He emphasized the need for corporate to come forward and contribute to the cause of NCDs. One good model will be to adopt districts or villages for such interventions.
“No single organization can solve the problem of diabetes. Organizations must collaborate and share ideas and resources to effectively manage the growing burden of this disease in developing world.” said Jannie Oosthuizen , Lilly’s vice president for Asia Operations.
Narrating on the cost of diabetes on the economy Kiran Majumdar Shaw , Chairperson CII National Committee on Biotechnology said “that large scale intervention program can come through special training of physicians and paramedical staff for which she recommended a one year diploma course for diabetes prevention and management and use of telemedicine to reach out to rural areas.”
Welcoming the eminent guests and the delegates, in her introductory speech *Ms.
Shobana Kamineni*, chairperson CII National Committee of Public Health said “We strongly feel that health should become a boardroom agenda and business and industry could do a lot and work in partnership with government programs. We have expanded its public health agenda beyond workplace interventions and to encompass intervention at community level through corporate involvement through PPP models. A 2% annual reduction in chronic disease death rates can result in an economic gain of 15 billion dollars for next 10 years. We will continue to focus on annual screening through workplace intervention program.
*Mr. Chandrajit Banerjee,* DG CII said that “We have consistently engaged itself within the public health arena and is working relentlessly to leverage private sector engagement through innovative PPP models to complement & strengthen existing health systems and this joint initiative with Eli Lilly and company will create a wave in the country.”
Attendees in the summit included senior ministry of health officials, leading diabetes experts, leading scientists, business leaders, representatives from international and national development agencies, and academicians and researchers engaged in the field of diabetes management.
Senior state-level government officers from many states implementing the NPCDCS programme also joined the summit.
A white paper released during the summit which encapsulates some of the best practices and the suggestions from a diverse range of experts. The white paper, which would be first of its kind on NCDs, includes input received from the five state roundtable forums with multi- stakeholder groups organized at state capitals of Rajasthan, West Bengal, Kerala, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. Recommendations in the white paper are also intended to strengthen the existing national policies and programme around diabetes management. One of the key recommendations of the white paper is to focus on building capacity of primary healthcare workforce and also introduce innovative educational tools for training like diabetes conversation maps.