Baleswar MP RK Jena, mentioning the urban-rural health divide due to poor infrastructure facilities and inadequate doctors, urged Union Health Minister JP Nadda to lay the foundation stone of the proposed AIIMS satellite centre at Baleswar, during a recent discussion in the Parliament.
In his reply, Nadda stated that the Centre would provide all necessary funds under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for improvement of rural healthcare system and assured to visit Baleswar after the current Parliament Session in connection with the AIIMS centre. However, he said that before his visit, the actual work would start.
Jena had urged the Central Government to set up a special task force mandated to study the rural-urban divide in India and suggested implementable policy solutions to bridge the gap, especially in the health sector and to take up creation of rural health infrastructure as a priority.
Furnishing latest data, Jena said in the Parliament that as per various estimates, about 68 per cent of the population live in rural areas, whereas around 80 per cent of doctors, 75 per cent of dispensaries and about 60 per cent of hospitals are in urban areas.
The results of this unequal distribution are clearly visible. Urban Infant Mortality Rate is 29 and rural IMR is 43. 41.6 per cent of rural children are stunted while the figure is about 32 per cent in urban areas. While 75.6 per cent of the urban births have a skilled attendant by the side, the figure is only 43.3 per cent in rural areas.
Stating the figure was only a tip of an iceberg, Jena said a lot of diseases go undetected in the rural areas and people were unaware of the health hazards increasing in the world.
He urged the Centre to consider this huge rural-urban health inequality as a major policy concern and work out a detailed long term implantable plan to correct
the situation.