(GIST OF YOJANA) Indian’s Quest for
universal Coverage
[APRIL-2020]
Indian’s Quest for universal Coverage
Introduction:
- The new vision for health for India rest on four pillars namely -
ensuring preventive health, providing affordable healthcare, improving
supply of quality health services and effectively implementing government
schemes in a mission mode.
First Pillar:
- Under the first pillar of preventive health, there is special emphasis
on yoga, Ayurveda and fitness. To reign in the harmful effects of smoking,
the Government of India has gone a to put a complete ban on e-cigarettes.
- The Government of India launched an ambitious scheme Ayushman Bharat. It
is India’s bellwether in its efforts towards achieving UN Sustainable
Development Goal 3.8, Universal Health Coverage (UHC).
- Ayushman Bharat through its two components Health and wellness Centres (HWCs)
and Pradhan Manti Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY) addresses health holistically
covering preventive care.
Second Pillar
- The second pillar of this vision is affordable healthcare which is
addressed by the second component of Ayushman Bharat scheme—PM-JAY.
- PM-JAY Is the world’s largest publicly -funded health assurance scheme
and provide more than 50 crore poor and vulnerable citizens with a health
cover of Rs.5 lakh for cashless secondary and tertiary inpatient care.
- Special pharmacies have been set up under which 800 critical drugs have
been made available at affordable prices. Because of this initiative, the
price of cardiac stent has been reduced by 80% and that of knee implants
reduced by 50-70%.
- Under the Pradhan Mantri National Dialysis Programme, lakhs of people
are able to avail free dialysis at district hospital, bringing major for
ESRD patients.
Third Pillar
- As the third pillar of this vision, supply side expansion focuses on
building medical infrastructure and providing quality medical education.
- A key reform in this area is the National Medical Commission act, 2019.
This will transform healthcare in the country by paving the way for the
establishment of the country’s new regulator of medical education and
certification.
Fourth Pillar
- The fourth pillar effective implementation of government health schemes
in mission – mode is essential to achieve the above goals.
- The Government of India has also launched Poshan Abhiyan or National
Nutrition Mission to tackle anaemia and stunting.
- As a signatory to sustainable development goals, other mission mode
Interventions include eliminating tuberculosis by 2025 and single use
plastic by 2022.
Budget 2020-2021: Demonstration of strong political will towards health:
- The union budget 2020-2021 demonstrates a strong commitment towards
health. The increase in the budget allocation for health from Rs 62.398
crore in 2019-2020 to Rs 69.000 crore for 2020-2021 reaffirms this promise.
- This budget gives a prominent place to citizen’s health. Several schemes
have been strengthened giving emphasis to universal immunisation; mission
Indradhanush has been expanded to cover 12 related diseases, including five
new vaccines. Fit India movement is a vital part of fight against diseases
resulting from lifestyle issues.
- Reaffirming the Government’s promise to End Tuberculosis by 2025, the FM
proposed to strengthen efforts under the “TB Harega Desh jeetega’’campaign.
- The budget allocation for both components of Ayushman Bharat has been
maintained with HWCs and Rs. 6400 crores.
- Addressing the supply side constraints, especially in tier-2 and tier -3
cities the FM announced viability gap funding for setting up hospitals in
the smaller cities. In the first phase, priority will be given to
aspirational districts where no empanelled hospitals are currently
available.
- A tax on medical devices has been announced in the budget. This tax will
Proceeds from this tax would be used to support this vital health
infrastructure.
- Addressing the challenge of strengthening fraud and abuse control and
safeguarding security of patient data, the government has proposed a slew of
measures like making use of frontier technologies such as Artificial
Intelligence and machine Learning.
