National Health Mission For Health & Social Welfare

The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was launched in 2005 by the government of India to deal with the health needs of the underprivileged and under-served rural areas of the nation. When started, it projected with health requirements of the 18 states that were known as having poor public health signals. Later, on May 1, 2013 Union Cabinet had accepted the launch of National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), as a sub-mission of National Health Mission (NHM), with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) being yet another sub-mission of NHM.

The initiatives taken were, ASHA, Rogi Kalyan Samiti, Janani Suraksha Yojana and Health Care Contractors.

Accredited Social Health Activists, ASHAs create a link between the community of the people and the health system. This is the first to-do priority for any health related needs, especially of the women and children.

Rogi Kalyan Samiti or the Patient Welfare Committee is a group of trustees, for the hospitals, to handle all the affairs over there. With the unbound fund, the committee attempt activities for the patient welfare.

In JSY, Janani Suraksha Yojana, National Health Mission helps to lessen the maternal mortality of the pregnant women by offering them government health facilities. Under this scheme, cash assistance is provided to the eligible pregnant women for providing birth in a govt. health facility.
To the under-served places of the nation, NRHM has given health care contractors. Proper education and grooming skills are being provided to grow the skill set of doctors, and importance is being given to the building of nursing staff and subsidiary workers such as ANMs.

NHM volunteers are working with full enthusiasm to cater the health needs of the people. Their efforts are well appreciated by the Government of India.

Timely Vaccination Is The Key To Good Health

Good health is important as it is the key to a good life, and, good nutrition is the key to a healthy lifestyle. If a person is healthy, he will have a strong working heart, muscles, bones and social life too. In India, around 8 in 10 people are suffering from health issues. The root of good health and healthy living is timely immunization to children and would be mothers and most of the people are either unaware of this or are not capable enough to have vaccinations properly and on time.

The Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) of the Government of India is working for the betterment in health. They aim to achieve full immunization stage of everyone, especially the target-age children and mothers in India. They are providing the same through state-and district-specific delivery of vaccines and reaching out to the maximum people, mainly the underprivileged ones. 2012 was declared as the Year of Intensification of Routine Immunization (RI) in India. This was the time when the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), Government of India, started their efforts around immunization and MoHFW entered into MoU, Memorandum of Understanding along with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF).

Then came ITSU, Immunization Technical Support Unit, established collaboratively by MoU, MoHFW and PHFI (Public Health Foundation of India), in collaboration with other partners as well. The efforts are being made to make a real change and impact on the health system, various national programs are being organized with the government and other stakeholders including civil society organizations. BMGF gives the funding support to ITSU, which helps ITSU to provide techno-managerial support for scaling up UIP.

ITSU also enables the system strengthening which aims for quality services and they support the implementation of Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Multi-Year Strategic Plan for Immunization. They are trying to improve the access, reach, quality and coverage of the routine immunization program in India, focusing majorly on states like Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh for complete vaccination system.

India witnesses a Notable Rise in Vaccinations programs

Contagious diseases like smallpox have been eradicated notably in the late 90s after a lot of effort invested in the immunization programs throughout the country. The first immunization programme was launched in 1978 and mainly in urban areas. What was required at this point was an introduction of the same in rural areas.

National Health Mission expanded the immunization programme gradually and broadly in 1980s to rural areas. Since then the programme has been revised and renamed as the Universal Immunization programme i.e UIP. The program consists of vaccination for nine diseases- tuberculosis, diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, poliomyelitis, measles, Hepatitis B, Diarrhea, Japanese Encephalitis and Pneumonia. Hepatitis B was added to the UIP in 2007. Thus, UIP has 9 vaccine preventable diseases in the program now.

The aim of National Health Mission, when introduced was to rapidly increase immunization coverage and slowly focus on monitoring and achieving self-sufficiency in vaccine production. This was further enhanced and achieved through Child Survival and Safe Motherhood Programme. A specific Immunization Strengthening Project (ISP) was also designed to run from 2000-2003, which included three main components (polio eradication, strengthening routine immunization, and strategic framework for development).

The goal as proposed by National Health Mission was to reduce morbidity and mortality through vaccine programs. So far the goals have been achieved and the efforts have brought India closer to the goal of polio eradication than ever before in history with only 42 confirmed cases in 2010 and only one in 2011.

Major Initiatives Under National Health Mission

Launched in 2005 by the government of India, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) deals with the health needs of underprivileged and under-served rural areas. Firstly, it was projected with addressing the health requirements of 18 states that had been known as having poor public health signals. Later Union Cabinet vide its decision dated May 1, 2013 has accepted the launch of National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) as a Sub-mission of an over-arching National Health Mission (NHM), with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) being the other Sub-mission of National Health Mission. Following are the few initiatives under National Health Mission (NHM).

Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA)
Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) have been involved under the objective for creating a link between the community and the health system. ASHA, initiated by National Health Mission (NHM), is the first port of call for any health related needs of underprivileged sections of the population, especially women and children.

Rogi Kalyan Samiti (Patient Welfare Committee)
Initiated by National Health Mission, the Rogi Kalyan Samiti (Patient Welfare Committee) is a group of trustees for the hospitals to handle the affairs of the hospital. These committees are being financed through unbound fund to attempt activities for patient welfare.

Health Care Contractors
National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has given health care contractors to under-served places, and has been engaged in educating and grooming to prosper the skill set of doctors at strategically located facilities identified by the states. Likewise, due importance is provided to capacity building of nursing staff and subsidiary workers such as ANMs.

Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY)
Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) was made by National Health Mission to lessen maternal mortality among pregnant women by promoting them to offer in government health facilities. Under the scheme cash assistance is offered to eligible pregnant women for providing birth in a government health facility.

Health Care is right not a privilege

Government has started several healthcare programs for the betterment of common public. Several National Health Missions have also been started for health care. They are basically focusing on reaching every child, reducing inequality of gender.

National Health Mission is designed to develop the health care work force and to reach every women and a child and preventing them from preventable disease with vaccination. The goal is to provide high quality medical resources to all the women and children, to ensure good quality of life, cure illness when possible. The core purpose of government is to design effective strategies to reach the public, quality and coverage of the routine check-up and creating efficient delivery system. In health prevention activities, there are two approaches:

• High – risk approach – is aimed at those persons in which there are more chances of development of disease .
• Population approach – is targeted at the general population who are endangered to that disease

In both the cases, the major focus is to prevent the people, from getting diseased. To provide an over reaching framework, to energize the program, we need to follow a vision that is to  improve program management, strengthening the ability for greater efficiency. Immunization is among the most- successful and cost- effective public health interventions till now.
The quality of healthcare given by a health professional can be judged by its results. A good system of regulation is fundamental to successful public health outcomes. Equally important is the need to increase the number of paramedical workers and training institutes.

Contribution of Mobile Medical Units (MMUs) towards better health opportunities

The National Health Mission has been an important vehicle in uplifting the health condition across India, especially in the rural areas. It has made some phenomenal achievements through various schemes and plans launched under its domain.

One of the major health strengthening unit of the National Health Mission is its MMU or Mobile Medical Unit. In a country like India where the reach of public health care is very low and private health care exorbitantly expensive, the Mobile Medical Units of National Health Mission has ensured easy accessibility to health resources.

The MMUs usually have two or three vehicles which are equipped with medical facilities. While one vehicle is used for the transport of medical or paramedical personnel, the other vehicle is used for carrying across accessories and basic laboratory facilities. This vehicle usually consists of machines which allow doctors and medical practitioners to perform the required action if the need arises. The Diagnostic Equipments which are normally carried in the van are X-Ray and ultrasound machines, ECG machine, and generators.

These medical units have a scheduled routine as to where they will travel to. It thus visits various locations on a weekly or bi-weekly basis. The MMU is a very necessary program as it is helping to provide impartial medical facilities to every section of the society.

National Health Mission goes in mission mode to provide vaccination to all

Immunization technical support unit (ITSU), the most ambitious effort of Govt. Of India to provide vaccination to every target-age child and mother in the country is taking proactive stand on eradicating preventable diseases in India. The techno-savvy govt. Is planning to track down every possible patient that needs preventive care irrespective of their place of location. The effort is focused on delivering impactful change with the support of partners like health system, govt and other key stakeholders to collectively deploy resources for implementing Multi-year strategic plan of complete eradication by the year 2017. The program is founded on three important pillars.

• Improve quality of routine immunization
  Routine immunization efforts are built on standards of high quality. Govt has partnered with Bill and Melinda Gates foundation to deliver vaccines transported in cold-storage so that the medicines do not lose their efficacy. The Govt is also building provisions for vaccination for major ailments and creating educational and sensitization programs to emphasize the value of timely immunization.

• Improve coverage of routine immunization
  Canvassing the length and breath of the country, health workers and delivery facilities are being deployed at town, district and village level. The workers are being trained to effectively carry and administer the vaccination to the deserving candidates thus improving and effectively expanding the scope of coverage. The govt is providing the monetary funding and social support to the delivery workers, community mobilizers so that they take pride in their effort.

• Strengthening Health delivery system
  The health delivery system is being spruced up, the facilities are being re-positioned to international standards, strategic challenges are being met with the financial funding, to create a conducive environment for health delivery that becomes a exemplar for the world. The Govt. Is creating the right infrastructure,motivating and creating policies to allow private public partnerships in the health sector to create an environment of complete responsibility.

National health mission is a comprehensive system built on creating a world class health delivery system that provides quality services to rich and poor alike. The Govt has created strict deadlines and is tracking ground effort dedicatedly to flexibly allocate resources to the under-funded areas.

National Health Mission: Delivering Health Care Facilities to the Economic Weaker Communities

Over the years, the public health scenario in India has undergone major changes. There has been a positive up-gradation in the state-owned health facilities owing to which healthcare expenses have gone down. Several health-care measures are now available in rural areas as well. People from the economic weaker sections are leveraging due to this development.

In order to safeguard the health of the poor and provide them with health service guarantees, the NRHM was launched in April, 2005. This has enabled the provision of community level health care facilities to people who could not afford them earlier. The underserved rural areas largely benefit from this scheme. The other sub-mission of the National Health Mission is the National Urban Health Mission, which was approved on May, 2013. This mission envisages to improve the living conditions of the urban poor, especially slum dwellers. The basic aim of this mission is to provide primary healthcare facilities to this populace. Since the urban population is rapidly growing, there has to be proper management systems to meet the healthcare challenges.

National Health Mission – Universal Immunization Program in India

Coming under the National Health Mission, India’s Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) is one of the largest of its kind in the world, in terms of number of vaccines used, number of beneficiaries reached out to, number of immunization sessions organized and the geographical and diversified coverage. It supplies to nearly 27 million infants and 30 million pregnant women free of cost. India strongly aspires to achieve universal immunization coverage and elimination of the targeted diseases.

The stated objectives of UIP are to:

• Acquire self-sufficiency in vaccine production.
• Improve the quality of services.
• Increase immunization coverage in a faster way.
• Build an authentic cold chain system to the health facility level.
• Present a district wise system for observing the performance.