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Health ministry issues draft National Health Policy 2015
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Ramesh Shankar, Mumbai
December 31 , 2014
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The Union health ministry has issued the much awaited draft National
Health Policy 2015 which is a declaration of the determination of the
government to leverage economic growth to achieve health outcomes and an
explicit acknowledgment that better health contributes immensely to
improved productivity as well as to equity.
The Policy addresses the urgent need to improve the performance of health systems in the country.
Main
objectives of this policy are to improve population health status
through concerted policy action in all sectors and expand preventive,
promotive, curative, palliative and rehabilitative services provided by
the public health sector; achieve a significant reduction in out of
pocket expenditure due to health care costs and reduction in proportion
of households experiencing catastrophic health expenditures and
consequent impoverishment; assure universal availability of free,
comprehensive primary health care services, as an entitlement, for all
aspects of reproductive, maternal, child and adolescent health and for
the most prevalent communicable and non-communicable diseases in the
population; and enable universal access to free essential drugs,
diagnostics, emergency ambulance services, and emergency medical and
surgical care services in public health facilities, so as to enhance the
financial protection role of public facilities for all sections of the
population.
The policy also aims to ensure improved access and
affordability of secondary and tertiary care services through a
combination of public hospitals and strategic purchasing of services
from the private health sector; and influence the growth of the private
health care industry and medical technologies to ensure alignment with
public health goals, and enable contribution to making health care
systems more effective, efficient, rational, safe, affordable and
ethical.
The primary aim of this policy is to inform, clarify,
strengthen and prioritise the role of the government in shaping health
systems in all its dimensions- investment in health, organisation and
financing of healthcare services, prevention of diseases and promotion
of good health through cross sectoral action, access to technologies,
developing human resources, encouraging medical pluralism, building the
knowledge base required for better health, financial protection
strategies and regulation and legislation for health.
The other
goal of this 58-page long policy document is the attainment of the
highest possible level of good health and well-being, through a
preventive and promotive healthcare orientation in all developmental
policies, and universal access to good quality health care services
without anyone having to face financial hardship as a consequence.
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