Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has approved a proposal, which will help bed-ridden patients and senior citizens access healthcare under the ‘Aapli Chikitsa’ programme. This move will help benefit countless elderly patients in all the municipal wards of city.
The proposal was put forth to the BMC standing committee by Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) corporator, Dr Saeeda Khan. The aim of this initiative is to make it easier for bed-ridden patients to undergo medical evaluation and other tests which includes blood test, X-ray, diabetes test etc.
This will be carried out through the ‘Aapli Chikitsa Yogana’ scheme, medicos and nurses working in civic-run health post, peripheral hospitals and maternity homes in the senior citizen’s vicinity will visit the house of senior citizens and conduct the required and prescribed tests. The reports will be further sent to the doctors who are online on BMC hospital’s portal and who can recommend further course of treatment to the patients.
Dr Saeeda Khan, NCP corporator from L ward (Kurla) said, “ Being a medico and corporator, I have received several complaints that senior citizens or bed-ridden patients are not being able to visit the civic-hospitals due to their age or health conditions. To make this task easier for them, the BMC has approved a proposal which will help make it convenient for them to access medical services.”
Dr Khan added, this scheme would be free of cost. But, it is strictly for those senior citizens who are physically unfit to access healthcare, due to health conditions, advanced age or frailty.
