Good health measures

REVAMPED HEAlTH POlICY

The Cabinet approved the National Health Policy 2017 to replace the 2002 version of 15 years ago.  The highlights of this policy are: Assured & affordable healthcare.

Shifting focus from “sick-care” to “wellness”, by promoting prevention and well-being.

• Gradually increasing public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP.

Strengthening health systems by ensuring everyone has access to quality services and technology despite financial barriers.

Increasing access, improving quality and reducing costs; free drugs, diagnostics & emergency services in public hospitals.

Focus on primary healthcare by allocating two-thirds (or more) of resources. Two beds per 1,000 population to enable access within the golden hour (the first 60 minutes after a traumatic injury).

• Reducing morbidity and preventable mortality of non-communicable diseases through pre-screening.
• Promoting India-made drugs and devices.
• Focusing on AYUSH (Ayurveda, Yoga & Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy) as a tool for cost-effect prevention and therapy.
• Reforming medical education.

KEY TARGETS

• Increase life Expectancy at birth from 67.5 to 70 by 2025.
• Reduce infant mortality rate to 28 by 2019.
•  Reduce Under Five Mortality to 23 by 2025.
• Achieve the global 2020 HIV target
• Reduce premature mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases by 25 per cent by 2025.

CAPPING OF STENT PRICES

In a major relief to lakhs of cardiac patients, the Government cut prices of life-saving coronary stents by up to 85 per cent by capping them at Rs 7,260 for bare metal ones and Rs 29,600 for drug  Eluting variety. The maximum retail price of bare metal stents (BMS) and drug eluting stents (DES) was fixed at Rs 7,623 and Rs 31,080, respectively, inclusive of VAT and other local taxes.

Earlier, the average maximum retail price for BMS was Rs 45,000 and DES Rs 1.21 lakh. The Government asked companies to change the MRP of the existing stock. The capping of the stent price resulted in a saving of around Rs 90,000 per stent and gross relief of Rs 4,450 crore in a year for cardiac patients. That despite the murmurs of discontent within the pharma companies, some of whom withdrew their product from the Indian market citing unviability.

TRACHOMA FREE INDIA

In 2017, India was declared free of Infective Trachoma, which has been a leading cause of infectious blindness among children. Announcing this Health Minister JP Nadda said that a survey findings indicated that the active trachoma infection has been eliminated among children in all the survey districts with overall prevalence of only 0.7 per cent.

“This is much below the elimination criteria of infective trachoma as defined by the WHO. The survey findings indicate that the active trachoma infection has been eliminated among children in all the survey districts with overall prevalence of only 0.7 per cent,” said Nadda, who also launched the National Trachoma Survey Report (2014-17).

Active trachoma is considered eliminated if the prevalence of infection among children below 10 years is below 5 per cent. Trachoma is a disease of the eye and is the leading cause of infective blindness globally and caused by poor environmental and personal hygiene and inadequate access to water and sanitation.