In order to reduce the burden of sickness in the future, the government is using the pool of medical college students to do routine health inspections at government schools. The Prime Minister’s Office gave the order after reviewing the education and skill development sectors.
The Union health ministry, along with the National Medical Commission (NMC), has directed all medical colleges to depute teams of medical students to schools.
Regular health checkups and screening of children in schools
“Prime Minister Office (PMO) has reviewed education and skill development and one of the points which have been noted in respect of department of school, education and literacy under heading
Implementation of National Education Policy is regular health checkups and screening of children in schools should be carried out. Technology should be leveraged for this purpose. Students of medical and nursing colleges can be associated for this purpose,” Anita Karwal, secretary, department of school and literacy at the education ministry wrote to health secretary Rajesh Bhushan.
Following this, Ashish Kumar Panda, deputy secretary at NMC wrote to the deans of all medical colleges, “It is requested to depute interns and PG students of your college to do the health checkup of school children whenever requested by the concerned states/UTs government authorities.
When contacted, an NMC official said: “It all depends on the state/UT how they plan school health checkups for students. Our medical college students will help them whenever such help is requested by the respective state/UT health authorities.”
“We entirely support this. We have an ongoing school health program across the country,” a health ministry official said.
Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman
One of the national government’s main programmes, the Pradhan Mantri Poshan Shakti Nirman (PM POSHAN), formerly known as the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, serves around 118 million kids at 1.12 million schools. With the aim of addressing two major issues affecting children in India—hunger and education—the programme provides hot cooked meals to schoolchildren on all school days. It does this by enhancing the nutritional status of eligible students enrolled in government schools, encouraging them to attend class more frequently, and assisting them in focusing on academic tasks.
The health ministry already runs Rastriya Bal Swathya Karyakram (RBSK) along with the education and women and child development ministries for children 0-6 years of age and children enrolled in classes 1st to 12th government schools.
Dr Sanjeev Bagai, chairman of Nephron Clinic and noted pediatrician said that routine health screening of children at an early age is an important aspect of preventive healthcare. “Annual medical screening of children in schools include height, weight, blood pressure, BMI, eye checkup, dental and ENT and its routine health screening will help early diagnosis and intervention and prevent long-time problems later in life.”
