Editorial:Good CATCH

A recent update on the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Annual & Total Health Check up for Healthy Sikkim [CATCH] informs that nearly 3/4th of the population of Sikkim has already been covered under this programme. There is no denying that CATCH is a well-intended programme and now that a majority of the people have received the basic health check-up, one hopes that the department releases a thorough update on the general health of the State. Such a health analysis will go a long way towards achieving the Mission Healthy Sikkim of the State Government because even from the initial hints coming out on the findings of the CATCH programme, it becomes reasonably clear that detection in time will ensure a healthier life for many Sikkimese who would otherwise get ambushed by health complications worsened because easily treatable conditions were not addressed in time. One must bear in mind that preventive healthcare does not figure very high in the list of healthcare priorities of our country and it is against this muddled backdrop that the CATCH programme becomes so impressive. Why this programme is so welcome can be better understood with an example. The programme implementers recently announced that high blood pressure was among the most common health issues detected in the camps held so far. It is also an established fact that high blood pressure usually gets detected in our country only after people become patients, in that after their hypertension manifests in the form of a debilitating suffering. Because preventive healthcare remains ignored in our country’s obviously overburdened and dysfunctional healthcare system, an easily cured condition [if detected in time] like high blood pressure receives medical prescriptions only after complications set in. The CATCH programme could correct this picture. The reasons why the programme should be made to deliver on such aspects are compelling. People with high blood pressure are four times more likely to die of stroke and three times more likely to die of heart disease than people with normal blood pressure. They are also prone to kidney failure. Health authorities recommend that people whose blood pressure reaches 140/90, a condition known as hypertension, take steps to bring it down by dietary changes, exercise or medications. But for that, their condition needs to be detected in time; but it doesn’t and is confirmed in a majority of the cases only after they have developed one of the complications mentioned above. With something like CATCH, if implemented well and followed-up responsibly, patients need no longer go on to suffer medical harm. The simple treatments which the system tends to overlook need not be ignored any more. For those who need statistics to convince them of even obvious merits, here’s one: Northern California in USA took a policy decision to track and cure hypertension in time. It increased the percentage of patients whose hypertension was under control from 44 percent in 2001 to 87 percent in 2010. Over approximately the same period, stroke mortality declined by 42 percent, heart attacks by 24 percent and the most serious type of heart attack by 62 percent. And that is why CATCH needs to be implemented effectively and its findings dovetailed intelligently into drafting future healthcare policies and facilities...