WHO DG terms Ayushman Bharat a bold move to improve health in India

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has termed government’s mega healthcare initiative, the ‘Ayushman Bharat’, as a bold and ambitious move, which has the potential to improve health and move people out of poverty.

On March 15, 2018, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director General, while delivering a special talk on ‘Universal Health Coverage’ to a gathering at NITI Aayog, said that it is necessary to educate people at the primary level about health and well-being.

The think tank quoted the WGO DG as saying in a tweet, “Announcement of Ayushman Bharat is bold, ambitious & courageous. The NHPS has the potential to not only improve health but also lift people out of poverty.”

“To make progress in the health sector or the AyushmanBharat, the involvement of the community is essential. That’s the only way it can happen,” he wrote.

Rajiv Kumar vice chairman at NITI Aayog said the 3Cs — ‘Constant Communication to Communities’ — will be the Aayog’s guiding goals as the country has set forth an aspiring journey to improve healthcare in India.

Kumar also said that a number of steps have been taken by NITI Aayog in order improve real-time monitoring, even at the district levels.

The Ayushman Bharat programme was announced this year in the general budget.

As a part of ‘Ayushman Bharat’, the government had announced two path-breaking initiatives, which will address health comprehensively, impacting primary, secondary and tertiary care system, and will cover both prevention and health promotion.

These initiatives include setting up of 1.5 lakh health and wellness centres closer to the homes of people. These will provide complete health care, including for communicable and non-communicable diseases, maternal services, and child health care services. These centres will also also provide free essential drugs and diagnostic services to the people.

Under ‘Ayushman Bharat’, the second initiative is the National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS), which will provide the treatment coverage up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year to over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families (approx. 50 crore beneficiaries), for the secondary and tertiary care hospitalization.