THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A health survey which was stalled by the Left when it was in the Opposition on the grounds that it was a clandestine attempt to help a Canadian firm to get details about lifestyle and health of the people of Kerala is allegedly being revived by the LDF Government. Based on the same model of the Kerala Health Observatory And Basic Surveillance Project that was shelved earlier, the Left Government has now come up with an Epidemiological Study to compile data base on mortality, morbidity, risk factors and health behaviour of the people.
The LDF had in 2012-13 opposed the survey inside and outside Assembly accusing the UDF of conducting dangerous drug trials on people in collaboration with the Canadian Government and providing the foreign country details about the lifestyle and health of the people of Kerala. The survey is now being taken up with the technical support of the same group that was involved in the earlier Survey, especially the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University, Canada. PHRI’s involvement was controversial in 2012-13 when the then Opposition leader V S Achuthanandan alleged that the UDF was gifting Canada and sharing with PHRI details of the people.
The same PHRI is now involved in developing software for the survey and evaluation of data collected from 10 lakh people. Confirming this, Dr Bipin Gopal, who is nodal officer of the Surveillance, told Express: “The PHRI was involved as expertise for developing the software for analysing the high volume of data is not available with the State or the country.”
However, sources said that this argument is being raised when there exists institutions like the Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Epidemiology. When asked if any agreement was signed with PHRI for this, he said there was no need for it as an accord was signed in 2012, which is still in vogue. However, the question of how an agreement of a project shelved earlier is still in vogue remains to be answered, sources said.
Agreeing that the present survey is based on the same model as that of the earlier one, Gopal claimed that the government was completely doing it and academic groups were only supporting it technically.
Apart from the DHS and DME, the other stakeholders are PHRI and Health Action By people, an NGO. Despite the government stating that data will be stored in the State Data Centre and the criteria for its availability will be decided, doubts have been raised about its manipulation. According to Gopal, Health Secretary or the Core group, which is the stakeholder, will be authorised to give permission for data availability. Moreover, Gopal said PHRI executive director Dr Salim Yusuf was involved in the project from the beginning. “Even from the first meeting with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Health Minister K K Shylaja, he was there,” he said. This is where Achuthanandan’s earlier allegation becomes relevant, the sources said.