Background: –
Bhagalpur is known as silk city as it is famous worldwide for its silk production. The silk industry in this city is hundreds of years old and a whole clan exist that has been producing silk for generations. There is a Silk Institute and Agricultural college here. Bhagalpur is a divisional town of historical importance situated on the southern bank of the Ganga River. Situated 220km east of state capital Patna and 410 km North West of Calcutta is well connected by rail and road.
There are more than 150 private practitioners in Bhagalpur district with a very good patient footfall. These practitioners are treating lot of TB patients as well. A big number of TB patients are being treated in the private clinics only.
Interventions:
Before our presence, the notification of TB patient as per government report (Nikshya) was quite low. Only 257 notifications were done from Jan 2016 to March 2017. Our team has started the process of notification of TB patients in April 2017 in the district town only.
Our team organized two trainings with the help of IMA in JLNMCH medical college and trained approximately 100 doctors practitioners on STCI and notification. Due to our intervention and hard work by our PP, we enrolled a good number of doctors in Nikshaya site and they started giving notification of TB patients.
Partnership:
With the help of District TB department and guidance of CDO Dr. Anjani Kumar we interacted with almost all the doctors treating TB in their clinics. but were not notifying the same. The project team put lots of efforts and got success to convince the doctors to notify the TB cases.Result:
Due to the intervention and hard work of PP Executive, we got following results:
Due to this intervention and regular follow up, Dr. Shambu Sankar Singh (Child Specialist) gave maximum number of notification. Previously not even a single notification was received from Dr. Shambu Sankar Singh by RNTC department but from July’17 to Dec’17, 342 notification of children having TB was received.
Challenges:
When we started the training process for notification of TB patients, most of the doctors were not willing to disclose the fact that they are treating the TB patients in their and clinic but not notifying the same.
In the beginning, the doctors were not interested to meet the project team. After putting lots of efforts, imparting training and regular follow up, we could make it possible to meet and convince them for TB patient notification.
The team has faced lots of challenge in organizing training because the doctors were not agreeing to give time as they had to close their clinic for attending the training. The project team did lots advocacy with CS, CDO, WHO and IMA and got success to organize the training and ensure the presence of the doctors.
Our efforts increased the number of notification of TB cases in Bhagalpur district which has been appreciated by CDO as well.
