For the second day, Health and Family Welfare Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Wednesday held a meeting on heat-related illnesses in the country and interacted with Health Ministers and senior officials of seven States experiencing severe heat wave conditions.
Chairing the discussions, he said, “Effective disaster response and management is a collaborative work. With coordinated actions between Centre and States, we can surely ensure there are no deaths due to heat waves.”
Among others, the Health Minister virtually interacted with State Disaster Management Ministers, Principal Secretaries, Additional Chief Secretaries and Information Commissioners of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Odisha, Jharkhand, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Telangana.
Mandaviya said that India has demonstrated during the recent Cyclone Biparjoy that timely and effective coordination between Centre and States can produce the desired outcome.
“Sharing of ideas, expertise and best practices by states helps in enriching everyone in effectively managing heat-related illnesses,” he said.
He urged the states to implement the State Action Plans at the ground levels with a timely warning to the people, and ensure preventive preparedness to reduce the severe impact of heat waves.
The Health Minister advised the States which are yet to prepare Health Action Plans, based on the National Action Plan, to do so urgently, detailing specific field level actions and ensure effective implementation of the same.
Mandaviya stated heat alert and forecasts from IMD are amplified and shared with all states daily by the Union Health Ministry. He urged states to develop training manuals on Heat and Health for State Officials, Medical Officers and Health Workers.
“State-level trainers need to ensure that their training is up to field level. Capacity Building of Medical Officers, Health Staff & sensitization of grassroots level workers on heat illness, with focus on early recognition and management using training manuals provided by Union Health Ministry is crucial,” he said.
States were advised to increase resilience to extreme heat at Health Facilities level by ensuring uninterrupted electricity supply; installation of solar panels and adopting measures to reduce indoor heat through installation of cool and green roof, window shading, shades etc.
Highlighting the lack of accurate date from the ground, Minister of State for Home Affairs Nityanand Rai urged states to share field level data on heat waves, including on deaths and cases, so that a realistic assessment of the situation can be made. He also highlighted the importance of timely action as soon as IMD alerts are received in the states.
Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Bharati Pravin Pawar urged states to ramp up information and awareness campaigns among people. She urged states to accelerate field level implementation of State Action Plans for addressing ill effects of heat waves.
Her colleague, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare S P Baghel also emphasized on sharing of regular advisories by states on the heat wave situation.
A granular status and analysis of overall heatstroke cases and deaths in India and heat-related illnesses in the seven affected States was made by the Health Ministry officials covering the trajectory of total emergency OPD, suspected and confirmed heatstroke cases and deaths; and their reporting as per Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP) portal.
It was pointed out that the National Action Plan on Heat Related Illness, released in July 2021 outlined the challenges posed by heat wave, heat-related illnesses and their management from primary to tertiary level.
Niti Aayog Member (Health) Dr V K Paul attended the meeting virtually. Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, ICMR DG Rajiv Bahl; Sudhansh Pant, Officer on Special Duty (Health Ministry); Lav Agarwal, AS (Health Ministry); Dr Atul Goel, Director General of Health Services; Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra, DG, IMD; Dr M Srinivas, Director, AIIMS and senior officials of the Health Ministry attended the meeting.