Community clinics

Experts have been unanimous in their view that the community clinics can provide the much needed healthcare services to the rural poor. However, the government's unwillingness to move ahead with the plan suggests that it is influenced by political consideration of the most inexplicable kind. It shouldn't have at all bothered about who initiated the project, rather its merits should have been taken into consideration. Obviously, welfare of the people has to take precedence over all other considerations.

People have to trust the government, and just because an election brings a new party to power, the positive aspects of the good work done by the previous government cannot simply evaporate into thin air. In this particular instance, people are not getting a valuable service and a huge amount of money is on the verge of being totally wasted.

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The government should respond to the suggestions offered by the experts on the issue. One very dominant theme in the experts' views is community participation in running the clinics. Obviously , the government has to provide the initial logistic support, but the experience of NGOs in running over 40 clinics suggests that decentralisation and community participation could be an integral part of hospital management in rural areas.

The community clinics can be a valuable addition to our health infrastructure that is not capable of catering to the needs of a huge population. So the government has to find ways of opening them to patients without wasting any more time.