The World Health Organisation has featured on its website an article on Makkalai Thedi Maruthuvam, the Tamil Nadu government’s health scheme to reach out to people and help them access healthcare in the city.
The article begins with two young women making their way to each house to deliver medicines and speaks about the success of the effort by health workers, who also screen people for non-communicable diseases (NCDs) besides giving advice on a healthy lifestyle to those they visit.
The MTM scheme was launched by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin soon after the DMK government was formed in 2021.
The article speaks of the diagnostic facilities that allow the workers to screen people for not just NCDs but also to conduct sputum tests to rule out tuberculosis. In the city, the scheme is being implemented by the Greater Chennai Corporation.