Creation of Public Health Cadre in Karnataka State, India.

Background: Public Health is the science and art of promoting Health, preventing diseases and prolonging life through organized efforts of Society. The Government of Karnataka constituted a committee to revive the Public health system in state of Karnataka to provide recommendations for creation of Public health ca-dre. Objectives: To provide recommendations for creation of efficient public health system through creation of public health cadre. Methods: We reviewed several documents for studying the history and current struc-ture of the department regarding creation of public health cadre/department. We conducted 35 brainstorm-ing sessions involving in-depth discussions. We also conducted field visits and administered a pre-designed format for collecting the feedbacks from the officials of different levels. Results: The reviewed documents had a common finding of implementing public health cadre. Our analysis of current human resources in health department indicates that there is shortfall of qualified public health professionals in the department to opt and continue in public health cadre. Among the existing staff, 51% of the respondents wanted to up-date their skills through continued professional education. Our results from the study demonstrated to create a Public health directorate and public health cadre in Karnataka state. Conclusions: We recommend that there can be three levels in Public Health Cadre namely, Taluk level officers, District level officers and State level officers. We recommend time bound promotions of medical officers in accordance with published and updated common seniority list, which is the basis for all service matters.

An appraisal of the tuberculosis programme in India using an ethics.

This is a review of the manner in which the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) is being implemented, with a focus on the attention being paid to ethical principles and the incorporation of these into the programme. The article elucidates how ethical principles can be applied to protect the rights of the potential beneficiaries of the RNTCP. The authors consider the RNTCP in the light of a framework that is usually applied in research to evaluate ethical principles in public health practice. The three key principles of the framework are: respect for persons, beneficence and justice. The authors propose that this framework be used to make an ethical evaluation of other pu health programmes at several levels, since this could bring farreaching benefits to society.