India lacks a complete paediatric cardio-care service
The HinduIt is overwhelming for parents to be told that their child may have heart defects. According to the Pediatric Cardiac Society of India, the prevalence of congenital cardiac anomalies is one in every 100 live births; or an estimated 2,00,000 children are born with CHD every year. A distressing perception, ground realities A retired health bureaucrat says that there has been more neglect and little improvement in child health care because creating a comprehensive paediatric cardiology care service is usually considered economically unviable — it is resource intensive and requires infrastructure investment that politicians and policymakers choose to evade. Apart from the low number of paediatric cardiologists and cardiac surgeons, and critical care centres, poverty is another barrier before treatment. There are programmes worth emulating such as Kerala’s ‘Hridayam ’, aimed at early detection, management and support to children with CHD or the Tamil Nadu Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme offering free specialised surgeries.
History of this topic
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