Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
EPW
COMMENTARY
vol L no 9
EPW
COMMENTARY
to the conclusion that we needed a radical change in our priorities. It was felt
that it was unrealistic to try and meet
resource requirements for all desirable
elements of the health sector. More serious, primary healthcare, our priority,
came to be neglected. In this unacceptable situation it was considered necessary
to adopt a health programme, which,
without any scope for deflection, focused
on primary healthcare.
The resources released under previous
annual budgets were nowhere near the
committed amount and the management attention required for a flagship
programme was never made available.
In the circumstances, the health administrators felt that they must cut away
from the old-style budget-making where
everyone is kept happy, and design a
rural sector project that is funded and
implemented entirely as a fire-walled
project. The objective of the scheme was
to provide primary healthcare to every
citizen free of cost and the project was
named Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA)
government (and renamed Universal
Health Assurance by the National Democratic Alliance government).
The central governments NRHM
launched in 2005 has completed eight
years (200506 saw the finalising of the
programme and there were no field
operations in this period). In my personal
capacity, I undertook an evaluation of
its performance based on programme
statistical returns up to June 2014.1 My
analysis on the performance and prognosis is contained in a monograph published by the National Institute of Health
and Family Welfare titled National Rural Health Mission: Performance and
Prognosis.2 I have relied on some of my
findings in that monograph in this article.
The programme was essentially a timebound, mission-mode one, with many
novel features.
The significant ones are: (i) It is a focused programme to strengthen and improve the rural health organisational
structure, thereby radically improving
the quality of primary healthcare service
delivery, particularly relating to women
and infants; (ii) increased deployment
of the requisite skilled human resources
vol L no 9
EPW
COMMENTARY
concerns of the new policy seem to suggest themselves. The policy should lean
heavily towards primary healthcare.
The claims from the other sectors, no
matter how pressing, would have to be
declined. Some of the central elements
required in the NHP 2015, as I assess
them, are discussed below:
(i) As the first strand of NHP 2015, I
would suggest that, to discharge its
minimal responsibility of governance, the
central government must very substantially increase its contribution of resources
to the health sector. Looking to the
success in the NRHM, it is very much in our
national interest to honour the resource
commitments earlier made under this
programme. The country now has a real
opportunity to pull itself out of a situation of permanent ill-health. The Twelfth
Plan allocation is 2.5% of the GDP. Inadequate though this is, we naturally have to
work within it. However, plan commitments in respect of resources cannot be
allowed to be illusory on an indefinite
basis. The budgetary allocations in the
first three years have been about 56% of
the proportionate entitlement for the
Twelfth Plan period. There must be a
quantum jump in the last two years of
the plan period if the government can
defend its sincerity in making plan allocations. Since the NRHM has markedly
picked up momentum, it would be possible for the sector to gainfully absorb
double the allocation in 2016 and 2017,
i e, Rs 80, 000 per year. This allocation
would bring the per capita allocation in
the last two years of the Twelfth Plan to
about Rs 650 per capita. The additional
allocation would make it possible to give
a significant boost to the NRHM which is
presently being choked for want of funds.
(ii) It has been observed earlier that the
health status over different parts of the
country varies greatly. As was explicitly
emphasised, one key element of the NHP
2002 was the objective of bringing about
equity in the health status over the country as a whole. There is no evidence to
show that this has been achieved to any
extent even after eight years of the
NRHM. Primary services are much more
cost-effective than secondary and tertiary
services. As a result of this, the outreach
of primary services is much more per
vol L no 9
EPW
COMMENTARY
vol L no 9
EPW
COMMENTARY
30
vol L no 9
EPW