PM Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana

In News

• PM Launched Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission, also called PM Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana.

About the Scheme

• Aim: To strengthen India’s critical healthcare network in both urban and rural areas.
  • Establish an IT-enabled disease surveillance system through a network of laboratories at block, district, regional and national levels.
  • Labs will be connected through the Integrated Health Information Portal.
• Features:
  • To provide support to 17,788 rural Health and Wellness Centres in 10 ‘high focus’ states and establish 11,024 urban Health and Wellness Centres.
    • It is in addition to the National Health Mission.
  • Exclusive Critical Care Hospital Blocks with over five lakh population.
  • Institutional setup related to one health, four new national institutes for virology, a regional research platform for WHO (World Health Organization) & other labs will be set up.  

The state of Healthcare in India (Need)

• COVID-19 crisis has highlighted glaring gaps in India’s healthcare sector.
• Availability of basic infrastructure: India has 1.4 beds per 1000 people, 1 doctor per 1445 people, inadequate other staff.
• Less Spending: Oxfam India 2020, India at 155th, allocating less than 4% of their budget on health (4th lowest in the world).
• Insufficient Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (ISDP): Due to manpower & resource shortage.
• Denial of health care: High out of the pocket expenditure & non-uniformity in Health care (regarding Rural Vs Urban)

Significance

• Increased investments in research on infection disease
• Institutional Infrastructure would be created
• More skilled & trained staff (including healthcare professionals)
• Testing network for the diagnosis of diseases will be boosted
• Cater both rural & urban areas uniformly.
• Further, enhance the spending on healthcare & supplement other schemes.

Other Related Initiatives

• Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM)
• PM Ayushman Yojana
• Jan Aushadhi Yojana
• Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana

Way Ahead

• Proper implementation & monitoring (along with other schemes)
• Use of technology
• Increase spending on healthcare as mentioned in National Health Policy (NHP), 2017.

Source: IE