The National Rural Health Mission was formally launched in Dehradun today for the State of Uttaranchal. The function was attended among others by the Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Dr.Anbumani Ramadoss. The ambitious programme of the Centre, the National Rural Heath Mission, forms a part of the Government’s National Common Minimum Programme and identified as a key thrust area. The Mission aims at providing affordable, accountable and effective primary health-care services to the masses. The Mission was launched by the Prime Minister Dr.Manmohan Singh in New Delhi, April this year. It is being implemented all over the country with, special focus on 18 States having relatively weak demographic indicators, with Uttranchal being one of them. This is the sixth State where the Mission has been launched after Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Orissa, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Dr.Ramadoss, who is visiting the high focused States during the launching of the Mission, urged the State to take effective measures in implementing the programme. He said that despite the creation of a vast public health infrastructure, comprising 1,42,655 sub-centers, 23,109 public health centres and 3222 community health centres, it was found that it could cater only to 20 per cent of the population, while the remaining 80 per cent were dependent on the private sector for health-care needs. Poor access to health-care, leads to avoidable incidence of morbidity, mortality and heavy expenses, often leading to indebtedness. Especially in rural areas, there are pockets of under served population, caught in the vicious circle of poverty, mal-nutrition and poor health. With this in mind, the Government had launched the National Rural Health Mission, to provide succour to the poor people, the Minister said.
Pointing out that health-sector has long been suffering from low levels of public funding, Dr.Ramadoss said that the National Rural Health Mission promises availability of funds to the health sector from 0.9 per cent to 2 to 3 per cent of GDP during the Mission period. Though, the Government increased the budget for Health by 30 per cent this year, the challenge is to transform the increased outlay into measurable beneficial outcomes. The Mission attempts, a major shift in the governance of public health by giving leadership to Panchayati Raj Institutions in all matters relating to health at the district and sub-district levels, the Minister said.
Uttaranchal has a lot of gap to cover before it can achieve the goals envisaged in the National health Policy and the population policy. But it has done good work in reducing the infant mortality rate to 41 against the all India average of 60 per thousand. He underscored the Prime Minister’s assurance that there will be no shortage of funds for the National Rural Health Mission and that the States have to ensure preparation of viable plans and timely completion of the goals envisaged. He expressed happiness that Uttaranchal has already identified 26 community health centres for upgradation in the first phase. The launching programme was presided over by the Chief Minister Shri N.D.Tiwari.
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(Release ID :12956)