August 6, 2024
Jawhar Sircar’s Special Mention on demand for assistance to the families of #TB patients
Sir, I wish to draw the attention of this Council to the fact that a recent study that covered 1,482 TB-affected households in four States, namely, Assam, Bengal, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu, has revealed that 61 per cent of tuberculosis-affected households experience “catastrophic” costs. By “catastrophic”, health researchers refer to healthcare costs crossing 20 per cent of a household’s annual income, which compels them to significantly lower their living expenses or to borrow money to cover costs. In 2017, Government announced a National Strategic Plan to end TB and achieve “zero catastrophic costs” for TBaffected families by 2020 as a milestone towards achieving a five-fold reduction in TB incidence and prevalence by 2025. The Central TB Control Programme could not achieve its target to eliminate the infection’s economic distress to households by 2020. India has the world’s largest burden of TB patients with an estimated 1.93 million new infections detected in 2021. The TB Control Programme offers free diagnosis and treatment, but multiple earlier studies have flagged diagnostic delays and catastrophic treatment costs. Since April 2018, they offered nutritional support to TB patients is through a payment of ₹ 500 per month for each patient throughout the treatment duration that typically lasts six months in drug-sensitive TB without complications. This assistance is insufficient to cover the costs incurred by the BPL families. The Government may seriously consider increasing this amount to the poorest families of TB patients. I demand the Government to look into it.
