LETTER TO EDITOR

Year : 2019  |  Volume : 7  |  Issue : 2  |  Page : 79

Preferred healthcare destination for tuberculosis care

Sora Yasri¹, Viroj Wiwanitkit², ^3
1 KMT Primary Care Center, Namkum, Bangkok, Thailand
² Joseph Ayobabalola University, Ikeji-Arakeji, Osun, Nigeria

Correspondence Address:
Sora Yasri
KMT Primary Care Center, Namkum, Bangkok, Thailand
Thailand

Source of Support: None, Conflict of Interest: None

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DOI: 10.4103/jacp.jacp_12_18

Dear Editor,

We read the publication on “Preferred Healthcare Destination for Tuberculosis (TB) Care among the Slum Dwellers in Chhattisgarh: An Exploratory Study” with a great interest.^[1] Samal concluded that “As a centrally sponsored program, TB care in India is free of cost and quality in diagnosis, and treatment is assured. Thus, communities should be mobilized to access TB care at public health facilities to prevent poverty trap, and other problems owing to private sector TB care.” We would like to share ideas on this finding. In our setting, the TB is also the big public health problem and the free of charge medication is also provided to the patients. The similar long que at government hospital and the feeling do not trust on the free drugs are also observed in our countries. The interesting question is whether the attempt to use mobilizing toward communities is the effective way to manage the problem. In the setting with more limitation of the infrastructure such as the minority village in border area, the use of health education to promote the responsibility of the villagers to care themselves might be a proper approach.^[2]

Financial support and sponsorship

Nil.

Conflicts of interest

There are no conflicts of interest.

 

References

1.	Samal J. Preferred healthcare destination for tuberculosis care among the slum dwellers in Chhattisgarh: An exploratory study. J Assoc Chest Physicians 2018;6:12-6.     [Full text]
2.	Tschirhart N, Nosten F, Foster AM. Migrant tuberculosis patient needs and health system response along the Thailand-Myanmar border. Health Policy Plan 2017;32:1212-9.