Non-communicable disease units to come up at 7 hospitals in Darj district

KOLKATA: For the first time the state Health department is setting up a non-communicable disease unit at six block primary hospitals in Darjeeling while one in the district hospital which will provide dedicated treatment to the patients suffering from various non-communicable diseases like diabetes, hypertension, cancer.

The main focus behind the construction of the non-communicable disease unit is to make people in the region aware of how to check various non-communicable diseases only by changing lifestyle and food habits.

It will be a homeopathy mode of treatment and Yoga giving a huge emphasis on the prevention of ailments through various measures. State government has already published advertisements for the recruitment of staff. The Ayush unit under the state health department is implementing the project.

According to a senior official, three non-communicable disease units will come up at three block primary hospitals in Darjeeling each while the other three will be set up at three other block primary hospitals in Siliguri.

One unit is coming up at the Darjeeling District Hospital. "Seven medical officers, seven yoga instructors and seven pharmacists will be deployed at each of the seven units. Recruitment process is going on," the official said.

"The department has already cleared Rs 80 lakh for the implementation of the project. The district health and family welfare samiti is carrying out the project. The project will be implemented soon," the official said.

It was learnt that the treatment will be given along the line of lifestyle management with the use of homeopathy medicines. It will also help people to reduce dependency of patients on antihypertensive drugs.

The requirement of antihypertensive drugs among the patients in Mirik has already been reduced due to the lifestyle management campaigns carried out by the Ayush department in those regions.

If everything goes as per plan, the department will launch non-communicable disease units in a south Bengal district within next year.

The Central Council for Research in Homeopathy (CCRH) ran the project in Darjeeling District Hospital on a pilot basis and also in Andhra Pradesh.