write some ot the measures taken by the government of India for
improving healthcare in our country ? what are its outcome?
Answers
Answer:
The practice of public health has been dynamic in India, and has witnessed many hurdles in its attempt to affect the lives of the people of this country. Since independence, major public health problems like malaria, tuberculosis, leprosy, high maternal and child mortality and lately, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) have been addressed through a concerted action of the government. Social development coupled with scientific advances and health care has led to a decrease in the mortality rates and birth rates.
CHALLENGES CONFRONTING PUBLIC HEALTH
The new agenda for Public Health in India includes the epidemiological transition (rising burden of chronic non-communicable diseases), demographic transition (increasing elderly population) and environmental changes. The unfinished agenda of maternal and child mortality, HIV/AIDS pandemic and other communicable diseases still exerts immense strain on the overstretched health systems.
Silent epidemics: In India, the tobacco-attributable deaths range from 800,000 to 900,000/year, leading to huge social and economic losses. Mental, neurological and substance use disorders also cause a large burden of disease and disability. The rising toll of road deaths and injuries (2—5 million hospitalizations, over 100,000 deaths in 2005) makes it next in the list of silent epidemics. Behind these stark figures lies human suffering.
Health systems are grappling with the effects of existing communicable and non-communicable diseases and also with the increasing burden of emerging and re-emerging diseases (drug-resistant TB, malaria, SARS, avian flu and the current H1N1 pandemic). Inadequate financial resources for the health sector and inefficient utilization result in inequalities in health. As issues such as Trade-Related aspects of Intellectual Property Rights continue to be debated in international forums, the health systems will face new pressures.
The causes of health inequalities lie in the social, economic and political mechanisms that lead to social stratification according to income, education, occupation, gender and race or ethnicity. Lack of adequate progress on these underlying social determinants of health has been acknowledged as a glaring failure of public health.