Government Schemes in India play a crucial role in solving many socio-economic problems that beset Indian society, and thus their awareness is a must for any concerned citizen. These are launched by the government to address the social and economic welfare of the citizens of this nation. The Union Cabinet this week approved the National Health Policy 2017 after having deferred it twice before. The last health policy was issued 15 years ago in 2002. Aiming to provide healthcare in an “assured manner” to all, the policy will strive to address current and emerging challenges arising from the ever-changing socio-economic, technological and epidemiological scenarios.
TOPICS COVERED IN THE ARTICLE
- Goal of the NationalHealth Policy
- Objectives
- Policy Thrust
GOAL OF NATIONAL HEALTH POLICY
The policy envisages as its goal the attainment of the highest possible level of health and well-being for all at all ages, through a preventive and promotive health care orientation in all developmental policies, and universal access to good quality health care services without anyone having to face financial hardship as a consequence. This would be achieved through increasing access, improving quality and lowering the cost of healthcare delivery.
OBJECTIVES
mprove health status through concerted policy action in all sectors and expand preventive, promotive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative services provided through the public health sector with focus on quality Health Status and Programme Impact:
Life Expectancy and healthy life
- Increase Life Expectancy at birth from 67.5 to 70 by 2025.
- Establish regular tracking of Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) Index as a measure of burden of disease and its trends by major categories by 2022.
- Reduction of TFR to 2.1 at national and sub-national level by 2025.
Mortality by Age and/ or cause
- Reduce Under Five Mortality to 23 by 2025 and MMR from current levels to 100 by 2020.
- Reduce infant mortality rate to 28 by 2019.
- Reduce neo-natal mortality to 16 and still birth rate to “single digit” by 2025.
Reduction of disease prevalence/ incidence
- Achieve global target of 2020 which is also termed as target of 90:90:90, for HIV/AIDS i.e, – 90% of all people living with HIV know their HIV status, – 90% of all people diagnosed with HIV infection receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.
- Achieve and maintain elimination status of Leprosy by 2018, Kala-Azar by 2017 and Lymphatic Filariasis in endemic pockets by 2017.
- To achieve and maintain a cure rate of >85% in new sputum positive patients for TB and reduce incidence of new cases, to reach elimination status by 2025.
- To reduce the prevalence of blindness to 0.25/ 1000 by 2025 and disease burden by one third from current levels.
- To reduce premature mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases by 25% by 2025.
POLICY THRUST
- Ensuring Adequate Investment – The policy proposes a potentially achievable target of raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP in a time bound manner.
- Preventive and Promotive Health – The policy identifies coordinated action on seven priority areas for improving the environment for health:
- The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan
- Balanced, healthy diets and regular exercises.
- Addressing tobacco, alcohol and substance abuse
- Yatri Suraksha – preventing deaths due to rail an d road traffic accidents
- Nirbhaya Nari – action against gender violence
- Reduced stress and improved safety in the work place
- Reducing indoor and outdoor air pollution
- Organization of Public Health Care Delivery – The policy proposes seven key policy shifts in organizing health care services
In order to test the dynamic knowledge of the candidate, UPSC and other Government Exams will have questions regarding the various schemes overseen by the Government of India. So the candidate is required to know about these schemes. More government schemes here