Meghalaya is expected to submit proposals to the Union Health Ministry very soon regarding strengthening of health infrastructure in the State including setting up of dedicated paediatric care units to deal with the third wave of Covid-19 pandemic.
The Health Ministry on July 15 has sought the expenditure proposals from all states and the Union Territories (UTs) at the earliest to enable expeditious approval and sanctioning of recently approved Rs 23,123 crore Emergency Covid-19 Response Package (ECRP) Phase-II.
According to sources, Meghalaya will submit its proposals for additional beds including dedicated paediatric care units in government hospitals in all districts, procurement of critical drugs, testing kits and PPEs, enhancing oxygen availability and strengthening of Covid care centres.
The ECRP Phase-II aims to accelerate health system preparedness for immediate responsiveness for early prevention, detection and management with sharp focus on health infrastructure development including paediatric care. The scheme will be implemented from July 1 this year to March 31, 2022.
Procurement of drugs for effective Covid management is an essential component of ECRP-II. The Centre has stated that guidance on procurement of drugs can be tweaked to local needs and states must come up with their own assessments based on stocks and costs involved.
The Health Ministry has recently directed all the states to establish dedicated paediatric care units in all 736 districts of the country for responding to the needs of paediatric Covid-19 management. It also offered to support the setting up of paediatric Centre of Excellence in each state and UT (either in State Medical Colleges or State Hospitals or Central Hospitals) and strengthening of Tele-consultation platform for providing Tele-ICU services.
Phase-II of the ECRP has Central Sector (CS) and Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) components. The scheme will help in strengthening decentralized public health actions and public health facilities in rural, peri-urban and tribal areas.
States and union territories were also advised to conduct a quick gap analysis for various infrastructure components under ECRP-II.
