The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC), in a recently released report, informed that the footfall at the Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) centres in the city has increase significantly over the last few days. Data shared by the department, and obtained by the Indian Express, revealed that over 14,500 people have availed the service in the last 15 days.
Set up at 15 BMC-run hospitals in Mumbai, these centres aim at helping patients in screening for diabetes, hypertension, and high blood pressure. Moreover, patients can walk in and undergo check-up for the above-mentioned conditions. Till date, 8,378 and 6,124 out of the total footfall have been men and women respectively, of which 13.2 and 11.6 per cent patients have been reported with hypertension and suspected diabetes mellitus respectively.
Owing to these numbers, experts associated with the BMC-run NCD centres have raised warning regarding increasing prevalence of lifestyle diseases in Mumbai. A report regarding the same was published in the Indian Express which quoted Dr Daksha Shah, Deputy Executive Health Officer at the BMC, who said, “It is on a voluntary basis where the kin of patients or outsiders can approach the centres directly and undergo the screening. We do random sugar tests and blood pressure. If we find the readings are more than the cut-off mark, we refer them to undergo further tests. This is helping us to detect more number of pre-diabetic patients at an early stage.”
Furthermore, officials are currently working on ways to improve the system as tracking the previously screened and referred patients with the available reports is challenging, eventually making it difficult for the teams to manage the data regarding confirmed cases. Since medication cannot be started based on just one test report, doctors have stated that the patients have to undergo proper screening and tests while fasting and after food.
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