Social Issues and schemes are a very important part
of the NABARD 2018 Exam and UPSC Civil
services 2018 syllabus for Prelims as well as Mains. As most of you
know that one of the best to cover Social issues and related government schemes
is Yojana Magazine. The Yojana Articles are one stop shop for the subject.
Therefore, we bring to you ‘Yojana Magazine
Article Summary’. The summary would be of selected articles which would
be important for the UPSC civil services exam 2018. This post is brought to you
by Oliveboard, an online exam preparation platform for
government and banking exams.
Placing Health Care at the Centre Stage
Govt has started giving more focus on Health Sector
in last couple of Budgets.
In 2017 Budget, National Rural Health Mission(NRHM)
and RashtryaSwasthaBima Yojana(RSBY) were announced.
In 2018 Budget speech, the Finance Minister
launched a flagship Health sector scheme called as “Ayushaman Bharat” which is
like an upgrade of the 2 above mentioned schemes put together.
Ayushaman Bharat has 2 components – Comprehensive
Primary Health Care(CPHC) and National Health Protection Scheme(NHPS).
Under Comprehensive Primary Health Care scheme, a
proposal to transform 1,50,000 health sub-centres into Health and Wellness
Centres (HWCs).
NHPS assures 10 crore poor and vulnerable families
of financial coverage, up to ₹5,00,000 per annum for hospitalization costs of
secondary and tertiary care.
Govt has announced 24 new medical colleges,
attached upgraded district hospitals, envisaging one medical college for every
3 parliamentary constituencies.
Suggestions for Comprehensive Primary
Health Care (CPHC)
· It
should become a vehicle for comprehensive, continues health care, as envisioned
in the National Health Mission (NHM) mentioned in National Health Policy (NHP)
of 2017.
· Expansion
of Primary care services to non-communicable diseases and mental health
disorders, thus aiming to make NHM a unifying platform for all health services.
· Expanding
coverage of Primary care by giving long term care and efficient follow up for
Chronic diseases/conditions like hypertension and mental health disorders at
primary care level and allowing its linkage with secondary and tertiary care
level.
· Community
Outreach through HWC’s will strengthen health promotion and disease prevention.
· With
the help if IT, HWC’s can generate real time data for dis-aggregated estimates
and monitoring of various health indicators.
· Govt
should promote judicious use of telemedicine and mobile phone technologies to
improve health care delivery in the remotes corners o the nation.
· Along
with HWC, CPHC should be extended to primary and community health centers as
well.
· Need
to create mid-level healthcare providers like Nurse practitioners and community
health assistants.
· Placing
AYUSH practitioners in HWCs
Challenges for CPHC
· Insufficient
budgetary allocation for National Health Mission – reduced by 2.1% from the
revised estimate of 2017.
· Ignorance
of Urban Health Component of NHM in the Budget – Due increased rural to urban
migration, Urban health needs to focus upon more than ever.
· Shortage
of Human resource for HWCs.
Suggestions for National Health
Protection Scheme (NHPS)
· Without
effective Primary Health care, the budget of NHPS might go out of hand. Hence,
an effective Primary Healthcare should be the focus.
· The
choice of diseases, tests and treatment to be covered should be done very
carefully, along with adoption of evidence based standard clinical management
guidelines, setting of cost and quality standards and measurement of health
outcomes.
· Developing
if Fraud detection and grievance redressal is also required.
· Insurance
Literacy – public awareness about the insurance scheme, i.e. NHPS, needs to be
promoted for appropriate utilization.
· The
remaining section (other than poor and vulnerable) should also be allowed to
participate in the scheme on payment of a premium. This would increase the risk
pool, required to keep the premiums down.
