THE NEED TO FOCUS ON HEALTH

Health is the fundamental inalienable right of citizens of any nation. Though India since its liberalization in 90’s has made strident economic growth the quality of development especially in the health sector is an area of concern. Just to give you a glimpse of the prevailing health status,

 India accounts for more than 20% of global maternal and child deaths, and the highest maternal death toll in the world estimated at 138,000.1
 United Nations calculations show that India’s spending on public health provision, as a share of GDP is the 18th lowest in the world.
 Nearly 67% of the population in India do not have access to essential medicines.
 Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in India was 57 in 2005-06.
 79% of the children between the age of 6-35 months, and more than 50% of women, are anaemic, and 40% of the maternal deaths during pregnancy and child-birth relate to anaemia and under-nutrition.
 There are 585 rural hospitals compared to 985 urban hospitals in the country.
 The ratio of hospital beds to population in rural areas is almost fifteen times lower than that for urban areas.
A villager needs to travel over 2 km to reach the first health post for getting a tablet of paracetamol; over 6 km for a blood test and nearly 20 km for hospital care.
A study conducted by the World Bank showed absenteeism ranging from 40% to 45% among doctors working in primary health centres.

It is obvious from the above statistics that the distribution of health resources are skewed in favour of the urban, privileged masses in the cities and the remote, rural areas and the under privileged sections of society including the urban poor are left without any access to basic health care services.

It is important to understand that health and poverty are closely related and a nation with good health tends to be more productive and that productivity tends to uplift economic and societal development. Therefore any nation –building exercise should first focus on ensuring basic health to its people and improving health should be the fundamental goal of economic development.

The challenges facing the nations’ health are eliminating infectious diseases, nutritional deficiencies, unsafe pregnancies and the challenge of escalating epidemics of non-communicable diseases. This requires a concerted public health response that can ensure delivery of cost-effective interventions for health promotion, disease prevention and affordable diagnostic and the therapeutic health care.

The health programs of Sukarya, a non-profit development organisation has been guided by its motto “behtar swasthya, behtar samaj’ since its inception in 2001. Sukarya’s work in the health sector focuses on making primary health care accessible to the underprivileged and underserved communities with the ultimate aim of contributing to the nations’ health and in turn to its growth and development.

In all its effort, the aim of Sukarya has been to reach the un-reached, marginalized and most vulnerable sections of society. In a society characterized by inequitable distribution of development, there exists a disparity in access to resources. Sukarya has therefore been particularly focusing on concerns of women and children who remain disadvantaged and to whom ‘heath’ remains elusive because of broader socio-cultural and economic factors. The high infant and maternal morbidity and mortality rate is a clear development indicator that proves the low health status of women and children in our country despite some strident development in other areas.

Sukarya has therefore specially been focusing on the health needs of the most vulnerable sections including women and children. The health concerns of women and children therefore find a greater programmatic space in our work. The critical areas of work in Sukarya’s health intervention therefore include efforts at ensuring safe motherhood, reproductive health, nutrition, sanitation, immunization and child care.