Yojana Article Summary for UPSC 2018 - VISION

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Thursday, May 03, 2018

Yojana Article Summary for UPSC 2018

Social Issues and schemes are a very important part of the NABARD 2018 Exam and UPSC Civil services 2018 syllabus for Prelims as well as Mains. As most of you know that one of the best to cover Social issues and related government schemes is Yojana Magazine. The Yojana Articles are one stop shop for the subject.
Therefore, we bring to you ‘Yojana Magazine Article Summary’. The summary would be of selected articles which would be important for the UPSC civil services exam 2018. This post is brought to you by Oliveboard, an online exam preparation platform for government and banking exams.

Placing Health Care at the Centre Stage

Govt has started giving more focus on Health Sector in last couple of Budgets.
In 2017 Budget, National Rural Health Mission(NRHM) and RashtryaSwasthaBima Yojana(RSBY) were announced.

In 2018 Budget speech, the Finance Minister launched a flagship Health sector scheme called as “Ayushaman Bharat” which is like an upgrade of the 2 above mentioned schemes put together.

Ayushaman Bharat has 2 components – Comprehensive Primary Health Care(CPHC) and National Health Protection Scheme(NHPS).

Under Comprehensive Primary Health Care scheme, a proposal to transform 1,50,000 health sub-centres into Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs).

NHPS assures 10 crore poor and vulnerable families of financial coverage, up to ₹5,00,000 per annum for hospitalization costs of secondary and tertiary care.

Govt has announced 24 new medical colleges, attached upgraded district hospitals, envisaging one medical college for every 3 parliamentary constituencies.

Suggestions for Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC)

· It should become a vehicle for comprehensive, continues health care, as envisioned in the National Health Mission (NHM) mentioned in National Health Policy (NHP) of 2017.
· Expansion of Primary care services to non-communicable diseases and mental health disorders, thus aiming to make NHM a unifying platform for all health services.
·  Expanding coverage of Primary care by giving long term care and efficient follow up for Chronic diseases/conditions like hypertension and mental health disorders at primary care level and allowing its linkage with secondary and tertiary care level.
· Community Outreach through HWC’s will strengthen health promotion and disease prevention.
·  With the help if IT, HWC’s can generate real time data for dis-aggregated estimates and monitoring of various health indicators.
· Govt should promote judicious use of telemedicine and mobile phone technologies to improve health care delivery in the remotes corners o the nation.
· Along with HWC, CPHC should be extended to primary and community health centers as well.
· Need to create mid-level healthcare providers like Nurse practitioners and community health assistants.
·  Placing AYUSH practitioners in HWCs
 
Challenges for CPHC

·  Insufficient budgetary allocation for National Health Mission – reduced by 2.1% from the revised estimate of 2017.
·  Ignorance of Urban Health Component of NHM in the Budget – Due increased rural to urban migration, Urban health needs to focus upon more than ever.
·  Shortage of Human resource for HWCs.

Suggestions for National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS)

· Without effective Primary Health care, the budget of NHPS might go out of hand. Hence, an effective Primary Healthcare should be the focus.
· The choice of diseases, tests and treatment to be covered should be done very carefully, along with adoption of evidence based standard clinical management guidelines, setting of cost and quality standards and measurement of health outcomes.
·  Developing if Fraud detection and grievance redressal is also required.
· Insurance Literacy – public awareness about the insurance scheme, i.e. NHPS, needs to be promoted for appropriate utilization.
· The remaining section (other than poor and vulnerable) should also be allowed to participate in the scheme on payment of a premium. This would increase the risk pool, required to keep the premiums down.