Rapid Health Survey at Kanavaipudur, Omalur Taluk, Salem

CTMR recently carried out a rapid health survey at Kanavaipudur, A village 12 Kms from Bommidi and 7 Kms from Lokur in Omalur Taluk of Salem District of Tamilnadu in the month of Dec 2011. A structured questionnaire, covering, the number of members per household, earning members, children, gender, food habits, personal habits including alcoholism, smoking, paan , housing pattern, Common ailment they suffer from, their place of treatment, health expenditure per month etc was prepared for the interview of the head of the household.  Dr.Thirumagal of CTMR trained the student volunteers of Sri Saradha niketan college of Arts & Science in the interview technique to be adopted.

The following are the key findings.

·         Majority ( All most 100%) are non-vegetarians

• ·         Most own their dwelling place and 70% have RCC housing.
• ·         About 32% of the male are alcoholic
• ·         Smoking habit is there among 22% of the males and there are an equal number of Paan parag users.
• ·         68% use the services of the Private health providers while 12% use ISM and 30% use Public Health facility.
• ·         The Reported incidence of Diabetes is 8% and Hypertension is 4% and Bronchial asthma is 4% While 3% suffer from Ischemic heart disease.
• ·         The Average health expenditure per month is around Rs 500
• ·         But only 4% of the patients of Chronic ailment use Public hospitals while 30% use ISM treatment facilities. Rest of the 66% use Private health facilities run by unqualified rural practitioners.
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• CTMR express it heart felt thanks to the participants of the survey and the student volunteers