Stroke Summit organised by Integrated Health & Wellbeing (IHW) Council on the occasion of World Stroke Day, emphasised the need to promote interventions such as mechanical thrombectomy (MT) to save patients beyond the golden hour.

“We need to prevent disability caused by stroke by making treatment available to the affected. To that end, tehsil and district level hospitals with stroke care capability are being established. The ministry will consider proposals to prevent or help people who suffered disability due to stroke. I will also write to the Union Health Minister to ensure stroke treatment is available everywhere,” says Ramdas Athawale, Minister of State, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India.

Dr VK Paul, Member, NITI Aayog released a whitepaper on building thrombectomy (treatment) systems of care in the region, prepared by the Society of Vascular and Interventional Neurology (SVIN).

The whitepaper carries key recommendations for policymakers to build a stroke-ready India, including, 

• creating a task force including neurologists, neuro interventionalists, EMS personnel, community physicians, stroke-trained nurses, stroke coordinators and administrators of hospitals who deal with a high volume of stroke cases;
• assessing the stroke disease and economic burden of stroke, the efficacy of the existing systems in place for stroke management and identifying key gaps, the cost and therapeutic effectiveness of existing public and private health systems and conduct a detailed analysis of clinical and cost benefits to the patients and overall population in the region;
• establishing local or regional certification programmes for stroke hospitals;
• creating government-supported funding mechanisms for patients in resource-constrained settings who will benefit from MT; and
• establishing specialised regional thrombectomy systems of care equipped to carry out MT and increasing the number of training programs for neuro interventionalists to create adequate talent for stroke management.