National Health Mission : Building Up India's Health System
Launched by the Government of India, the National Health Mission is the flagship initiative to strengthen the health care infrastructure with an improvement in both the rural and urban delivery systems for health care. It gradually progressed from its launch date to date, being one of the most inclusive and comprehensive health programs from the launch date in 2005. As of 2024, this mission is changing the face of health: addressing focal and key health challenges, improving s ervice delivery, and reaching even the most remote corners of the country.
Table of Contents
What is the National Health Mission?
The NHM is a broad umbrella program, constituting two sub-missions.
1. National Rural Health Mission (NRHM): Launched in 2005 for rural alone towards filling up health care gap between the urban and rural sector, the core subject areas include enhancement of grass root health care systems, maternal and child health, and burden related to communicable and non-communicable diseases in the rural sector.
2. National Urban Health Mission (NUHM): It is a relatively newer addition that responds to the newly emerging health care needs of the urban areas and complements NRHM that has concentrated only on the slum population in urbanized and semi-urban areas where the infrastructure is still inadequate. Better health outcomes would be achieved through service delivery improvements and affordable access to care for vulnerable populations.
Key Objects of NHM
National Health Mission, besides catering to the weaker sections of the economy, is focused upon providing health services for the most vulnerable groups in our society: indigenous, tribal, women, children, and the elderly. Major objectives of NHM:
Health Infrastructure Upgradation: Health institution upgradation, PHCs, CHCs and the district hospitals.
Universal Health Coverage: They assure the common man-in particular the poor with fully accessiblity of health facilities when in dire need for health care without breaking into their purses.
Maternal and Child Health: This means saving mothers and children due to provision of quality maternal health services, nutrition, and skilled delivery personnel when they need them most.
Disease Prevention and Control: There is a focus on giving prevention and control measures for communicable diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis, and HIV/AIDS, besides the NCDs that are diabetes and hypertension.
Capacity Building and Training: Ongoing improvement of skills and professional competence of health care service providers so that quality care can be delivered by training and professional development.
Key Achievements of NHM
Since its formation, NHM has witnessed glaring success of upward movement of health care delivery in India.The organization has achieved successes so far as shown below:
1. Rural Region Healthcare Access Improvement: Thousands of structures are underway, including PHCs, CHCs, and district hospitals aimed at reaching health services closer to millions of people who stay far from principal cities.
2. Improved Maternal and Child Health: It has enhanced maternal and child health through improved facilities, more qualified health workers, and increased awareness regarding problems of maternal health that have resulted in a falling level of maternal and infant mortality.
3. Expansion of Immunization Programs: NHM has provided a big vaccination drive through massive immunization programs under the Universal Immunization Program, NHM. It has protected children from some of the deadliest diseases like polio, measles, and diphtheria by having substantial increases in vaccination coverage.
4. Strengthening of Disease Control Programs: The programme has also strengthened and improved control over infectious diseases like tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV/Aids in India with improved surveillance, diagnosis, and treatment services.
NHM Latest Update (2024)
It is because of this changing need for health and issues that have driven the National Health Mission steady up to 2024. Latest in terms of details are as given below:
1. Expansion of Telemedicine and Digital Health Initiatives: This created many value additions in the digital health technologies. Due to this lockdown, which was because of the corona pandemic, NHM accepted the telemedicine service to provide healthcare advisory services and consultancy services in the nook and corner of a country. Mobile applications for health and online consultations also minimized the load that was caused on the respective healthcare setups.
2. Establishment of Health and Wellness Centers: NHM has added more numbers of Health and Wellness Centers across the nation in continuation to expand and enhance grassroots access to health care. The HWCs will most likely render a decisive integrated primary health care service, which would include maternal and child health, adolescent health, chronic disease care, mental health services among others.
3. Non-Communicable Diseases: In as much as NCDs including diabetes, hypertension, and cancer rise with the day, NHM now sharpens efforts at all tiers of prevention, early detection, and treatment through the identification of new and innovative methods of health service delivery. This will include screening programs among the high-risk population, supported by health education campaigns emphasizing lifestyle change and preventive measures.
4. Ayushman Bharat Scheme Implementation: It is one of those ambitious plans that has allied NHM to deliver Universal Health Coverage. Until now, millions of families have enjoyed the fruits of this tie-up by getting insurance coverage, hence cashless treatment at designated hospitals all over the country.
5. COVID-19 Vaccination and Preparedness: NHM has played an important role in the COVID-19 fight for India. As vaccination begins across the country, NHM facilitates vaccines to reach all across India, especially the most vulnerable sections of the population. At the end of 2024, NHM has been an important support structure in the ongoing efforts to vaccine against COVID-19 as well as routine immunization.
6. Mental Health Focus: NHM has focused on mental health services by integrating it into the main primary healthcare delivery system. NMHP, under NHM tries to ensure evidence for service delivery of mental health care at community levels so that mental health is not ignored any further.
Challenges of NHM
Though NHM has been able to achieve most of its objectives, several challenges remain when the organization is striving towards the objectives.
– Infrastructure Gaps: With all the new healthcare infrastructure constructed by NHM, an all-pervasive lacuna remains in the quality health care infrastructure, more so in rural locations.
– Personnel Shortages: There has been an acute shortage of qualified health personnel-doctors and nurses in the majority of the areas, which in turn does not allow the health units to offer the right services.
– Funding Issues: Though NHM is a well-funded scheme, it is apprehended that even with such financial support which would be sufficient to meet up the rising health needs might not be utilized well and in time, especially in rural and other underprivileged regions.
– Awareness and Education: While it has been relatively improving, but still, the awareness about services by NHM and preventive healthcare is quite low in several sectors of various regions.
Conclusion
The National Health Mission forms one of the pillars of the public health care system in India and aims at providing equal and accessible, quality health care to the population. The transformation areas of NHM are focused on all aspects of maternal and child health, disease prevention, and improvement in accessing healthcare facilities, both in rural and urban areas. As it adapts to new challenges of healthcare issues especially in respect of NCDs and digital health, the mission, therefore could further elevate the health system in India so that every citizen, regardless of background or place, would get necessary healthcare services.
Along with the uninterrupted support and financing from the government coupled with continued commitment toward filling gaps that currently exist in infrastructure, NHM would be on the top of shaping the future in India’s healthcare system.
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