Getting patients back to the public health system
02 Jul 2009
The government has operationalised the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), which seeks to strengthen the public health delivery system at all levels in the country.
According to the Economic Survey for 2008-09 tabled in Parliament today, 6.49 lakh ASHAs and link workers have been selected up to December 2008 out of which 5.63 lakh have been given orientation training and 4.12 ASHAs have drug kits as part of the programme.
The NRHM seeks to strengthen the PHCs for 24x7 services on a priority basis. Of the 22,370 PHCs in the country, only 1,263 were working 24x7 as of 31 March 2005 (before the NRHM). The number of 24x7 PHCs today, as reported by the states, is 7,212, signifying a big leap forward in getting patients to the government system.
Over 15.99 million women have been brought under the Janani Suraksha Yojana for institutional deliveries in the last three years. So far, 8,645 other paramedics have been appointed on contract. About 9,073 doctors, 1,875 specialists and 20,977 staff nurses have been appointed on a contract basis in the states so far.
Indian Public Health (IPH) standards have been finalised and a first grant of Rs20 lakh was made available to all the district hospitals of the country to improve basic services. So far 243 mobile medical units have also been made operational in the states.
As per the Economic Survey, the National AIDS Control Programme has scaled up targeted interventions for high risk groups to 1,271, counselling and HIV testing to 10.1 million persons, of which 41.5 lakh were pregnant women. It also provided ARV treatment to more than 2.17 lakh patients during 2008-09.
