Minister Updated Lok Sabha With Health Schemes for Rural Women

The National Health Mission (NHM) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme which envisages achievement of universal access to equitable, affordable & quality health care services that are accountable and responsive to people’s needs, including women, across the country. The main programmatic components include Health System Strengthening in rural and urban areas, Reproductive-Maternal- Neonatal-Child and Adolescent Health (RMNCH+A), and Communicable and Non-Communicable Diseases.

The Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Dr. Bharati Pravin Pawar stated this in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.

The primary responsibility for ensuring healthcare services lies with respective State/UT Governments. Under National Health Mission, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare provides financial and technical support to States/UTs, including Andaman and Nicobar Islands, to strengthen their healthcare systems, based on the requirements posed by them in their Programme Implementation Plans (PIPs) within their overall resource envelope.  Various works/initiatives carried out under NHM in the country are as below:

Ayushman Bharat – Health & Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs): 1,50,000 Sub- Health Centres (SHC), Primary Health Centres (PHC) and Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) are transformed into Ayushman Bharat- Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs) upto December, 2022 to deliver twelve packages of Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC) that includes preventive, promotive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative services which is universal, free and close to the community. These AB-HWCs will provide Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC), by expanding and strengthening the existing Reproductive & Child Health (RCH) services and Communicable Diseases services and by including services related to Non- Communicable Diseases (NCD), to begin with the common NCDs such as, Hypertension, Diabetes and 3 common cancers of Oral, Breast and Cervix. It is also envisaged to incrementally add primary healthcare services for Mental health, ENT, Ophthalmology, Oral health, Geriatric and Palliative health care and Trauma care as well as Health promotion and wellness activities like Yoga.  Against the target of 1,50,000, a total of 1,54,070 AB-HWCs have been operationalized in the country by 31st December, 2022.

National Free Drugs Initiative: States/UTs are supported to provide essential drugs based on the level of public health facilities free of cost to all who access these facilities.

Free Diagnostics Initiatives. (FDI): Under the initiative, support provided to States/UTs to provide a set of essential diagnostics in 33 States/UTs at various levels of care, free of cost.

National Ambulance Services (NAS): Under the NHM, technical and financial support is provided for emergency medical services in States/UTs through a functional National Ambulance Service (NAS) network linked with a centralized toll-free number 108/102.

Mobile Medical Units (MMU) are supported to facilitate access to public health care at the doorstep particularly to people living in remote, difficult, under-served and unreached areas to provide primary care services.

Some major initiatives under NHM focusing on women and children, including ST category women and children, throughout the country, are as follows:

Ayushman Bharat- Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB-PMJAY), provides health coverage of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year to around 10.74 crore poor and vulnerable families in the country as per Socio Economic Caste Census (SECC).

Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN) provides assured, dignified, respectful and quality healthcare at no cost and zero tolerance for denial of services for every woman and newborn visiting public health facilities to end all preventable maternal and newborn deaths.

Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), a demand promotion and conditional cash transfer scheme for promoting institutional delivery.

Under Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK), every pregnant woman is entitled to free delivery, including caesarean section, in public health institutions along with the provision of free transport, diagnostics, medicines, other consumables & diet.

Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA) provides pregnant women a fixed day, free of cost assured and quality antenatal check up by a Specialist/Medical Officer on the 9th day of every month.

LaQshya improves the quality of care in labour room and maternity operation theatres to ensure that pregnant women receive respectful and quality care during delivery and immediate post-partum.

Monthly Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Day (VHSND) is an outreach activity at Anganwadi centers for provision of maternal and child care including nutrition in convergence with the ICDS.

Reproductive and child health (RCH) portal is a name-based web-enabled tracking system for pregnant women and new born so as to ensure seamless provision of regular and complete services to them including antenatal care, institutional delivery and post-natal care.

MCP Card and Safe Motherhood Booklet are distributed to the pregnant women for educating them on diet, rest, danger signs of pregnancy, benefit schemes and institutional deliveries.

Delivery Points- Over 25,000 ‘Delivery Points’ across the country have been strengthened in terms of infrastructure, equipment, and trained manpower for provision of comprehensive RMNCAH+N services.

Setting up of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Wings at high caseload facilities to improve the quality of care provided to mothers and children.

Functionalization of First Referral Units (FRUs) by ensuring manpower, blood storage units, referral linkages to improve the access to quality of care for pregnant women.

Further, initiatives such as Mission Parivar Vikas, Adolescent Friendly Health Clinics (AFHCs), Weekly Iron Folic Acid Supplementation (WIFS), Menstrual Hygiene Scheme, Facility Based Newborn Care (FBNC), Home Based Newborn Care Program, Social Awareness and Actions to Neutralize Pneumonia Successfully (SAANS), Home Based Care for Young Child (HBYC), Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), Early Childhood Development (ECD), Comprehensive Abortion Care (CAC), Anemia Mukt Bharat (AMB) strategy, Nutrition Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) program are supported to increase access to quality healthcare services. Support is also provided to strengthen Universal Immunization programme, introduction of new vaccines.

In tribal, hilly and desert areas, the norm can be relaxed to one ASHA per habitation, depending on the workload, geographic dispersion, and difficult terrain. To attract quality Human Resources special provisions like ''You quote, we pay” / Hard area allowances.