Military hospitals to have dedicated depts for elderly

Pune gets one

• A department of geriatrics been established on the premises of the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) clinic

• The next step will be to set up such departments at other places across the country where ECHS polyclinics are co-located with military hospitals and the clientele base is high

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, January 22

The military hospitals in the country will soon have a dedicated department for catering to specific needs of the elderly. As a pilot project, one such department has come up at Pune.

A department of geriatrics been established on the premises of the Ex-Servicemen Contributory Health Scheme (ECHS) clinic co-located with the Military Hospital, where specialists from the Armed Forces Medical College and Command Hospital are available for consultations.

Geriatrics is a branch of medical science that deals with health care of elderly people, and emphisises on prevention of diseases and disabilities by focusing on preventive diagnosis and providing “in-time counselling” to check mitigate the onset of any disorder.

Sources said the next step would be to set up such departments at other places across the country where ECHS polyclinics are co-located with military hospitals and the clientele base is high.

According to Army Medical Corps officers, preventive diagnosis is a revolutionary step in medicare and the armed forces medical services are the first organisation in the country to have adopted it.

This approach, while addressing health care concerns of the elderly, will also cut down on the number of hospital admissions and reduce the daily work load of healthcare organisations.

Last year, a system of preventive health check-up for ECHS beneficiaries was introduced with the aim of early detection of medical disorders, specially lifestyle diseases, and timely intervention to avoid lengthy and costly medical procedures.

While preventive check-up policy prescribed certain type of tests and fixed their frequency to once in five years for those in the age bracket of 40-59 years, once in two years for those between 60-79 years and every year for those above 80 years, the facility of geriatrics department can be availed as and when required.