(GIST OF YOJANA) Indian’s Quest for universal Coverage [APRIL-2020]

(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.