Unified National Health Mission for all,says PM

“After the success of the National Rural Health Mission,we now want to expand the scope of health services in our towns also. The National Rural Health Mission will be converted into a National Health Mission which would cover all villages and towns in the country. We are also formulating a scheme for distribution of free medicines through government hospitals and health centres,” Singh said.

The scheme to distribute free medicines in government health set-ups is believed to be very close to Singh’s heart and the PMO has been one of the driving forces to ensure that it is included in the 12th Five Year Plan. The ministry is already in the process of setting up a Central Procurement Agency for the purpose.

On the issue of a unified health mission,the ministry made its objections clear to the Planning Commission that wanted a unified mission for the entire country.

“Urban and rural areas have a different set of health issues and needs. It is not going to serve anybody’s purpose to adopt a ‘one size fits all’ approach to something as nuanced as this and that is what the Commission seems to be bent upon. We are in favour of a National Urban Health Mission as was being planned all this while,and we have said that to the Commission in our response on the draft health chapter,” said a senior official in the Health Ministry.

The Commission in its draft health chapter for the 12th Plan concedes that health needs of urban and rural India are different but advocates different strategies rather than different missions for the two,factoring in things like better communication and transport facilities and easier access to secondary and tertiary healthcare centres in both public and private sector in the plan for the urban areas.

It also wants states to have greater say in the structure of the mission for better customisation as per individual health needs. The draft health chapter proposes that each district should develop a multi-year health action plan for prevention,service delivery and systems management which would then become the basis for resource allocation and thrown open to social audits. “There is greater scope for contracting arrangements with the private sector in urban areas,to strengthen the existing public facilities. Area specific NHM plans shall address the challenges unique to their areas. For example in urban areas there is overcrowding and poor environmental sanitation,pollution,risk of road traffic injuries,higher rates of crime and risky personal behaviour,” reads the section on universalisation of the proposed National Health Mission.