The Chief Minister of Kerala, Mr Oommen Chandy and Dr Nata Menabde, WHO Representative to India committed to engage on 29 April 2015 in a long-term technical collaboration that will enable the state achieve Universal Health Coverage (UHC) by strengthening the primary health care services and addressing the most important cause of morbidity and mortality, namely noncommunicable diseases (NCDs).
Mr V.S. Sivakumar, Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Government of Kerala presided over the function. Also present on the occasion were state ministers of Finance, Law and Housing, Home and Vigilance, Panchayat and Social Justice, Urban Affairs and Welfare of Minorities, as well as senior officials of WHO Country Office for India.
Stating that this collaboration marks an important development in WHO’s engagement with the state of Kerala, Dr Menabde said, “This landmark development initiated within the overall scope of the WHO’s Country Cooperation Strategy with the Government of India (2012-17), we believe, will hasten real progress towards Universal Health Coverage in India and also boost our engagement with other states in the country.”
“I would also like to congratulate the state government of Kerala for engaging in this new area of collaboration with WHO, despite being one of the best performing states in the country on the health parameters. It demonstrates the commitment of the state government to further address health related challenges and strengthen health systems with the overall purpose of improving health status of its population. We are sure Kerala can and will become an exemplary model for effective Universal Health Coverage in the country,”she added.
Despite its impressive health indicators, Kerala is facing new challenges in the form of NCDs. The ageing of its population, the incidence of chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, mental illnesses, among others, has worsened the burden of morbidity. One of the key objectives of this collaboration therefore, would be to develop a concerted action plan and to develop capacity within Kerala’s health workforce to redress this situation of increasing NCDs.
Through this partnership it is expected to train and build the skills of more than 10 000 frontline health workers at the primary healthcare level to effectively address NCDs at the community and local level.
This collaboration would also allow for the dissemination of the learnings informing the scale-up of UHC actions in the country and in the entire South East Asia Region of WHO