Punjab Health Department has joined hands with the World Health Organization, Central Government’s Indian Council of Medical Research and Vital Strategies Organisation for early identification of patients suffering from hypertension and putting them on treatment.

Under the same collaboration, the Health Department has launched India Hypertension Control Initiative (IHCI) in five districts of the State — Bathinda, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Pathankot, and Mansa.

“The basic objective of the project is early identification of cases of hypertension, put them on treatment, continuation of treatment to achieve and maintain control of hypertension so as to reduce the early mortality due to hypertension,” the state Health and Family Welfare Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu on Friday.

He said that 80,000 cases of hypertension had been enlisted till December 2019 under the screening programme. Under IHCI, doctors, staff nurses, ANMs, ASHAs were trained to screen patients for hypertension and initiate treatment at the earliest.

Sidhu said that this programme is based upon the Central Government’s project launched in five states – Punjab, Kerala, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Telangana. Punjab was the first state to launch the project as a part of National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS).

 The Minister said that after successful implementation of the earlier screening programme for two years, now Punjab Government has decided to scale up the project to the whole State. A workshop to this effect was held at the state level where the district health administrators including Civil Surgeons, District Nodal Officers and Medical Specialists were sensitised towards the project by WHO and state health representatives with inputs from ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) and Vital Strategies Organisation.

It has been emphasised that the procurement of drugs is streamlined and the availability of drugs ensured at all levels in the Government hospitals and Health and Wellness Centres so that patients are not required to travel long distances to procure medicine, he said adding that the training for the staff in the new districts will start in February and completed by end of March 2020. The Programme would be functional across state by April 2020.