Broadly speaking: AYUSHMAN BHARAT

Profile of the author: Tanishk Jandial is a 2nd year law student from Dogra Law College, University of Jammu

The theme of the 2020 year’s World Health Day is ‘Universal Health Coverage (UHC): everyone, everywhere’. The ultimate goal of UHC is to ensure that everyone, everywhere, should have access to essential healthcare services without facing financial hardship. Progressive realization of UHC is also one of the key features of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. India’s commitment towards achieving UHC is clearly reflected in policies and institutional mechanism, which are directed towards increasing coverage and access to health services.

As per reports, while 78% of the Indian population resides in rural areas, only 2% of medical professionals are available in those areas. Also, the Government-Financed Health Insurance Schemes (GFHIS) often face challenges in implementation.

As per National Sample Survey (NSS) 2014, only 11.3% of the bottom 40 % (10%covered by Government Insurance) population has some insurance coverage. Given such a scenario, it is imperative that healthcare must touch the bottom of the pyramid if we are to achieve inclusive and sustainable growth.

India has embarked on an ambitious target of achieving universal health coverage (UHC) for all citizens during the 12th plan period with a vision that everybody should have access to affordable health services in the country.

A high-level expert group on UHC was constituted by the Planning Commission of India in October 2010, with the mandate of developing a framework for providing easily accessible and affordable healthcare to all Indians.

But, much needs to be done and universal health coverage is still a work-in-progress. Currently, the Indian healthcare system is fragmented and lacks coordination among the different stakeholders involved in delivery of healthcare services.

There is a considerable rural-urban imbalance in which accessibility is significantly lower in rural areas compared to urban areas. Public and private hospitals in urban areas have seen a steep rise in adoption of technology but these systems are disparate and use varied technology systems.

Consequently, patient‘s health information gets trapped in silos, unable to be shared with other systems and establishments due to lack of interoperability.

The need of the hour is to ensure high-quality data by introducing a secure, digital system to maintain electronic health records (EHRs) in pre-defined standards.

The digital, standardized platform would ensure that patient’s health information is available when and where it’s needed. Ultimately, this would bring patient’s total health information together to support better healthcare decisions and more coordinated care.

The two new initiatives announced by Finance Minister Arun Jaitely under the Ayushman Bharat Programme in the Union Budget 2018 provide the necessary thrust to India’s universal health coverage.

As part of the initiatives, Mr. Jaitley announced a new flagship National Health Protection Scheme, providing a health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakh per family per annum for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization. The scheme will reportedly cover 10 crore vulnerable families, with approximately 50 crore beneficiaries. The second is the creation of over 1.5 lakh health and wellness centers, which will “bring healthcare closer to home”, by providing comprehensive healthcare, including treatment of NCDs (non-communicable diseases) and maternal and child health services, under the Ayushman Bharat programme. A sum of Rs. 1200 crore has been allocated for these 1.5 lakh centers to provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services.

Over a century, U.S. health care has seen numerous elaborate arrangements, from organizational and regulatory structures to payment mechanisms emerge, be dismantled and reincarnate with even greater degrees of complexity. Health care has repeatedly topped the political agenda; been an area of passionate contention among an unexampled plethora of diverse interest groups; and scarcely ever been an unpopular topic of national discourse. However, fervent attempts to reconcile its health care with traditional American values of individual freedom and consumerism have not adjusted well with the ideals of equity and social justice.

Multiple layers of complex arrangements and concomitant complex regulatory provisions have ensured that health care in the U.S. is one of the most administratively and technologically intensive systems in the world. More than 50% of health-care spending in the U.S. in 2010 went into health worker’s wages, with a large chunk of the growth in health-care labor taking place in the form of non-clinical workers. What this entails is that for every penny spent on health care, very little goes into actually improving health.

CONCLUSION

If we need to solve India’s healthcare problem at the ground level, we need to celebrate each day as World Health Day. In WHO’s 70th anniversary this year, World Health Day is centered around “Universal health coverage: everyone, everywhere” and we hope the occasion is celebrated both in letter and spirit creating a lasting impact. With Ayushman Bharat leading the way, there is a strong opportunity for India to put its best foot forward and prescribe the right dose of healthcare to those who need it the most.

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FAQ:

Q. What is the total annual output of trained hospitals in India?

Ans. The total annual output of trained hospital managers in India is 2500 whereas the need is estimated to be of 22,000 professionals based upon the country’s present healthcare status.

REFERENCES

1. ‘Image source’ https://www.treehugger.com/thanks-election-universal-healthcare-may-be-around-corner-4853522 accessed on 8 July, 2020.
2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC605725 accessed on 8 July, 2020.
3. http://www.optum.in/thought-leadership/library/universal-health-coverage.html accessed on 8 July, 2020.
4. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.devex.com/news/in-india-can-universal-health-care-become-a-reality-92650/amp accessed on 8 July, 2020.
5. https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-mix-indian-health-care-can-do-without/article30785823.ece accessed on 8 July, 2020.