Bangalore: Lifestyle-related ailments are striking the not-so-rich as well. The Bangalore Mahanagara Palike's Health Department now feels the need to collaborate with major private and government hospitals to offer facilities such as cardiac care, diabetes control, kidney care, dental and eye care, TB and HIV screening.

BMP's India Population Project (IPP) centres will soon start providing such treatment and screening facilities. For this purpose, BMP has entered into arrangements with tertiary care hospitals such as Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, Victoria Hospital and Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital. Discussions are also known to be on with some speciality hospitals.

Under the IPP programme, 55 health centres were set up with World Bank assistance and 39 of them were subsequently handed over to the BMP; 16 centres come under different city municipal councils. Among the 39 centres now under BMP, six are actually managed by organisations like the Lions Club.

The services provided so far by IPP centres have included pre-natal and post-natal care, other basic gynaecological treatment, immunisation, permanent and temporary birth control; the focus to start with was population control where some degree of success was achieved. Infrastructure for these centres was established during 1993-94 with an investment of Rs. 39 crore. The World Bank assistance ended in 2001.

The BMP reportedly felt that the facilities and equipment at these centres could augment its own healthcare services which now need expansion to meet the growing needs. More staff were also being added for this purpose.

The IPP centres in some areas such as Bhuvaneshwari Nagar attend to around 70 patients a day, including many from the middle and upper middle income groups.

The centres in places like Prakshnagar and Gayatrinagar need revamping because they have many expensive equipment lying unused. This was also a reason the BMP wanted the tie-up to materialise.

According to many medical officers in the BMP, including some who had served at the IPP centres, the collaboration will help poor patients who cannot otherwise approach even the larger nursing homes, let alone corporate hospitals.

With the BMP willing to bear the cost, they will now benefit from better healthcare including preventive care which means a lot to the lower income families.

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