🧵Social media outrage shouldn't surprise any longer, but enough already on Institute of Mental Health letter @U2Brutus_off @realitycheckind @GaneshKaladaran and other conspiracy theorists. 😡
What the TN Health Secretary seems to propose is change in FUNCTIONING not OWNERSHIP.
What has been proposed instead of the current organisational setup is a FULLY OWNED GOVT company.
To distinguish from wholly owned govt COMMERCIAL companies like SIPCOT which are profit-seeking, it's stressed it should be a NOT FOR PROFIT company since it's not profit-seeking.
The term NON-PROFIT is sometimes conflated with NOT FOR PROFIT NGOS (whether NGO is society, trust or section 8 company), but here TN Govt is rightly retaining full ownership & responsibility of IMH's services. Just under a different type of govt entity, nothing to do with NGOs.
🧵MDR-TB Drug shortage RTI response finally arrived, with some key information dodged. All information requested is available to anyone with access to Ni-kshay Aushadhi portal yet @TbDivision has ducked questions on the tender cancellation and delivery of late tender. Appealing.
RTI reply denies communication to procure emergency supply locally while also stating that "States were requested to procure few drugs locally for a limited period by utilizing the approved budget under National Health Mission (NHM)."
Cost = ~8.65 crores. Potential loss 43 lakhs?
@ramyakannan @RupsaChak @ScienceTales @kalyanray30 @RemaNagarajan @pushpanarayan @Banjotkaur @tabassum_b @TbHivActivist @SpeakTB Stock at hand at CMSS warehouse & GMSD (c/o Union Govt) or State Drug Store is of no bearing to the patient. Last mile delivery starts with District Drug Store (DDS) which sends monthly drugs to TB Units & Peripheral Health Institutes. PHIs should also have 1 month reserve stock
Whether school or college, private organisations seem blissfully unaware that they're required by law to provide accessibility by 15-6-2022.
Private schools as polling booths have steadfastly refused to install permanent ramps despite a decade of advocacy bit.ly/design4diversi…
So the Varanasi online testing centre (others weren't any better) had this steep incline masquerading as a wheelchair ramp last afternoon.
NTA was patient with our bombarding solutions by 4 architects for a temporary ramp before 3 pm today. So were Varanasi district officials.
2500+ people endorsed overnight, the disability sector's representation to @MoHFW_INDIA minister @mansukhmandviya on restoring the suddenly dropped questions from the upcoming National Family Health survey NFHS-6. Read it @ bit.ly/question-of-in…
So this send off to house of 'husband' after menarche for consummation / the start of actual married life is apparently a custom in some North Indian states.
In some cases gauna occurs only after legal age but pestering happens 😑
Baffled that public health policy organisations & professionals are mum about @IIPSMumbai dropping anemia ALTOGETHER from #NFHS-6, barring few voices below.
2 decades of anemia data in NFHS dropped because ... What?
Here's the entire NFHS-6 set of schedules and manuals released quietly by IIPS after the disability sector made a noise : drive.google.com/file/d/1nVC-0a…
References to anaemia still persist in the instructions to interviewers !
For 2 decades India (& the world) has been using capillary blood for demographic health surveys. IIPS made it clear that the data is not for diagnosis but estimates. If the evidence pointing to capillary blood Hb results being higher has been around for so long, why act only now?