GS Mains Model Question & Answer : Major challenge before the country is to provide better health care facilities to its people. Discuss. Comment

Q. Major challenge before the country is to provide better health care facilities to its people. Discuss. Comment

Model Answer:

Major challenge before the country is to provide better health care facilities to its people. Discuss.

Due to lack of proper health care 254 females out of every 100,000 the while giving birth. This is called maternal mortality rate (MMR). 50 out of 1000 children the at the time of birth which is called inlfant mortality rate (IMR). 15 children out of 1000 the before completing 4 years of age which is known as child mortality rate (CMR). Certainly these news are not encouraging. There are so many villages and remote areas in the country. But unlike cities and towns, these areas do not have adequate health centers or hospitals and doctors to attend to the problems of people there..

Let us look at the role played by the government in providing health facilities.

(i) National Rural Health Mission (NRHM): NRHM was launched in 2005 to provide affordable and qualitative health service to rural population. It aims at strengthening health and family welfare programmes, removing diseases such as malaria, kala azar, blindness, lodline deficiency, T.B., leprosy etc. by improving public health delivery sysitem. NHRM has started revitalizing the existing primary and community health centres. By September 2010 around 8 lac health workers have been given training on health care and more than 9 thousand doctors and 26 thousand nurses have been appointed on contract basis to give health services to rural population. NRHM is also running many mobile medical units (MMUs) which run from one place to another to provide health care at door step.

(ii) Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) : In order to save the life of the mother at the time of the delivery the government has started the Janani Suraksha Yojana.

(iii) Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) : Health care facilities are not uniformly available in India. Some states have very good health infrastructure in the form of medical institutes / colleges and hospitals while others do not have these facilities. This has created regional imbalances in provision of health care service and over crowding of certain places where these facilities are available. For example the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AHMS) is situated in Delhi and is a world class medical institute cum hospital. Since other states do not have such a facility, people from different states came to Delhi to get treatment in AHMS. As a result AHMS has become aver crowded with a long waiting period for treatment. To remove these problems the government of India has launched PMSSY. Under this scheme six new AHMS like institutions will be constructed in different parts of the country. It also aims at upgrading 12 existing government medical colleges in different states.

(iv) National AIDS Control: AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) is a dangerous health disorder which affects people infected with HIV. About 24 lakh people in India were affected by HIV in 2009, which is one of the highest in the world. Once the virus called HIV attacks the human body, the person loses strength to fight diiseases and his/her immune system become weak over time. Under such a circumstance the person cannot recover if he/she suffers from, any disease. AIDs has endangered population all over the world. The government of India has created centers to generate awareness to prevent AIDS as well as treat people affected by the virus.

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