health and safety: Health of urban poor should be top priority

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Health of urban poor should be top priority

The blinding lights of the city — good jobs, the promise of a financially stable future — are making the rural poor migrate to interior towns. And it is this population that India's new health minister will have to be concerned about. An ambitious plan — National Urban Health Mission envisaged by former health minister A Ramadoss — failed to take off during his tenure. Whoever now takes over the health portfolio will have to see it go through at the earliest.
    Designed on the lines of UPA's flagship National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) which aims to provide healthcare to the vast rural population, NUHM aims to provide accessible and affordable primary healthcare to the poor and homeless urban population — a number that is steadily rocketing. NUHM aims to improve the health of 22 crore people living in urban slums in 429 cities.
    And with the threat of pandemics becoming real, viruses re-asserting in nature to cause mass outbreaks, like the H1N1 swine flu virus presently causing havoc, the health minister's to-do list has to include an effective Integrated Disease Surveillance Network.
    India holds the dubious distinction of being the world's diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, TB and malnutrition capital. Government spends just 1% of GDP on health. As a consequence an already poor population has to meet medical needs through out of pocket expenditure amounting to about 4.2% of GDP. The country is short by six lakh doctors, 10 lakh nurses and two lakh dental surgeons. The new health minister must deliver what was declared under the 11th Plan — the setting up of six AIIMS-like institutions, 60 new medical colleges and 225 new nursing colleges.
TOP PRIORITIES
National Urban Health Mission needs to take off
Need to plug shortage of trained healthcare personnel — doctors, nurses, dental surgeons
Mechanism to combat mass outbreak of diseases needs to be finalised
New medical institutes need to be raised in double-quick time
Issues like rural stint for MBBS students, sex education in schools need to be sorted out