Ayush Ministry to expand the reach of Siddha Medicine
One of the mandates of the Ministry of AYUSH is the promotion of the different AYUSH systems of medicine over different geographies and across different populations. The Ministry has decided to induct Telemedicine as one of the ways to achieve this goal.
The Ministry, on Friday (25 October 2019), signed an MoU with M/s CSC e-Governance Services India Limited, a Special Purpose Vehicle set up by the Ministry of Electronics & IT for promoting e-Governance, to launch a pilot project of Telemedicine in the Siddha system of healthcare.
The AYUSH Grid project is the overarching platform envisioned by the Ministry of AYUSH for digitalization of the entire AYUSH Sector in all functional areas of AYUSH, like health care delivery (at different levels), research, education, public health programmes, drug regulations etc. The proposed Telemedicine project being launched as a pilot will be taken forward as part of the AYUSH Grid project in future. The vision of National Health Policy 2017 and the e-governance goals of Government of India would be at the foundation of the AYUSH Grid. The Hon’ble Prime Minister while addressing a gathering of AYUSH professionals on 30 August 2019 at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi had emphasised the potential of the AYUSH Grid as a tool to transform the entire AYUSH Sector to reach higher levels of impact in public health. The Ministry of AYUSH has already initiated the development of this nationwide IT Grid.
The MoU between the Ministry of AYUSH and M/s CSC e-Governance Services India Limited for running pilot project of Telemedicine in Siddha System was signed by Dr. Dinesh Tyagi, CEO, CSC SPV and Shri PN Ranjit Kumar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of AYUSH. The MoU provides for launching the Telemedicine project on 1 November 2019 and running it for a period of 6 months in identified locations in Tamil Nadu. Both sides are also in discussion to expand the Telemedicine programme beyond the pilot phase, to cover more states and to include all the AYUSH Systems for the benefit of the public.
Telemedicine has the potential to provide healthcare services to the public at their doorsteps. The present MoU will extend the facility of healthcare to those living in rural and remote areas of Tamil Nadu through the CSC units.
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