Minutes of meeting of RNTCP partners involved in TB control
The meeting of RNTCP partners involved in TB control was held on 18th December 2015 at Nirman Bhavan, New Delhi under the chairmanship of Dr Jagdish Prasad, Director General of Health Services (DGHS),GOI.
The key objectives of the meeting were as below:
- Appraise partners on updates on Daily regimen roll out
- Review the performance assigned to partners
- Action plan for way forward on partnerships
The agenda and list of participants is at Annexure-I and Annexure-II respectively.
Deputy Director General (TB) welcomed all participants to the meeting. The participants were introduced to policy decision of use of daily regimen for treatment of TB in 104 districts across 5 states in the Country under the programme.
Dr Jagdish Prasad, Director General of Health Services (DGHS), GOI emphasized the need to achieve goal of Universal Access to TB care in his opening remark. He said that transition to daily regimen will improve scope of universal access through engagement of private providers more effectively. For this, the RNTCP seeks support of all stakeholders and partners to implement this landmark change in the strategy for TB control in the Country.
Each partner organization representative introduced themselves and shared their geographic and thematic area of work in TB control. Deliberations were done on framework of engagement of RNTCP partners for daily regimen implementation.
DGHS stated area of work expected for support from partners for engaging private providers along with roll out of daily regimen to treat TB under the programme. Following are those areas of work and deliberations made on them during the meeting:
- Line listing, mapping and prioritization of providers – Professional organization and existing list with DTC can be used as a base to update the list. The objective should be to cover all providers serving in the geographic area with collection of details which can help to prioritize them for engagement.
- Sensitization and training of providers –both formal CMEs and personal communications to reach all providers.
- Systems to facilitate notification, follow ups and adherence monitoring through ICT support
- Communication to members through bulletins and journals under professional organizations
- Development of communication and training tool kits
DDG-TB delivered presentation on partners’ role in transitioning to daily regimen. Following important components of engagement of partners were discussed.
Mechanism of engagement of private sector was shared with the partners. In this mechanism, private practitioners refer patients for free diagnosis to public laboratory or private laboratory which are engaged with RNTCP. On diagnosis, a patient will be notified and RNTCP will provide free drugs to the practitioner who will work as a DOT provider. If the private provider suggests and found feasible, family member can be assigned as a DOT provider. Further, monitoring of adherence and public health services will be extended to these privately treated patients from the programme staff.
A model district action plan was shared to guide preparation of private sector engagement. It highlighted detailed line listing, prioritization and plan to train private practitioners.
Task force for private sector engagement was proposed to lead, coordinate and guide private sector engagement in transition phase to implement daily regimen. The members of the task force will include professional associations, NGO partners, civil society / patient representative organization, partners, medical college faculty, district TB officer. The task force will coordinate sensitization and training of private providers, facilitate monitoring by professional peer support group and carry out advocacy at a scale at all levels for effective engagement of private sector.
The proposed framework of engagement of partners in the transition to daily regimen under the programme is placed at Annexure-III. DGHS suggested that all partners should submit plan of engagement while mentioning specific activity and geographic coverage to CTD.
The meeting was concluded with vote of thanks by DDG-TB.