Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission on October 25, 2021 in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. This scheme launched in light of the experiences of Covid-19 pandemic.
This mission is being promoted as “India’s largest Scheme to scale up health infrastructure”.
This mission is an addition to the Ayushman Bharat National Health Mission.
Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission Key Points
- To provide support to 17,788 rural health and wellness centers in 10 high-focus states.
- Establish 11,024 urban health and wellness centers across India.
- To provide critical care services in all districts with more than five lakh population through exclusive critical care hospital blocks, remaining districts to be covered through referral services.
- To set up a national institution for One Health, four new institutes for virology, a regional research platform for WHO’s South East Asia region, nine biosafety level-III laboratories and five regional centers for disease control.
- Add 35,000 new critical care related beds in 600 districts.
Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission Objectives
Challenges in Indian Health Care System
- Lack of proper infrastructure
- Shortage of trained healthcare professionals
- Increased patient load because of Covid-19 pandemic
Significance of the Mission
In light of the above challenges, let us look at the significance of this scheme.
- For a long time, India has struggled with an inadequate healthcare infrastructure.
- This scheme looks at a healthier India by providing affordable healthcare to the marginalised sections.
- This scheme, along with other schemes like Swachh Bharat Mission, Jal Jeevan Mission, Mission Indradhanush will save crores of people from diseases.
- In addition, Ayushman Bharat Yojana has also solved many health related issues through Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the sad state of the healthcare infrastructure system in India.
For a developing country like India, the public health spending is only around 1 to 1.4 percent of the GDP. So, the infrastructural improvement suggested under the current scheme will help in bringing more investments in the healthcare sector from both public and private sectors which will make the healthcare system more accessible and affordable.
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