Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday launched the ambitious Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission to give a big push to India’s healthcare system.
The new pan-India scheme launched by the Prime Minister from his parliamentary constituency of Varanasi, will be in addition to the National Health Mission.
PM Modi, in his address at the function, noted that the campaign of "Sabko vaccine, muft vaccine" was going ahead successfully as India had officially crossed the 1 billion vaccinations milestone on October 22.
The Prime Minister said that under this scheme, the infrastructure required to check and monitor diseases would be developed. "The health scheme will also augment screening of diseases.
Under this scheme, the government will provide support for 17,788 rural health and wellness centres in 10 high focus states. Further, 11,024 urban health and wellness centres will be established in all the states under the scheme.
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At the ceremony, PM Modi took a dig at the Indian National Congress without naming the party, saying that those who had previously governed the country kept the healthcare system devoid of facilities.
"For a long time after Independence, not much attention was paid to health and healthcare facilities. People who governed the nation for a long time, kept the healthcare system devoid of facilities instead of facilitating its development," the Prime Minister said.
"Villages either didn't have hospitals or no doctors in those hospitals. Block hospitals didn't have testing facilities. If test reports came in, there was doubt on its results. District-level hospitals didn't have facilities for conducting surgeries," PM Modi pointed out.
The new scheme targets to build an IT-enabled disease surveillance system by developing a network of surveillance laboratories at block, district, regional and national levels, in Metropolitan areas. Integrated Health Information Portal will be expanded to all States/UTs to connect all public health labs, according to a PMO statement.
The statement said that critical care services will be available in all the districts of the country with more than 5 lakh population, through Exclusive Critical Care Hospital Blocks, while the remaining districts will be covered through referral services.
Under the scheme, the people will have access to a full range of diagnostic services in the public healthcare system through a network of laboratories across the country. Integrated Public Health Labs will be set up in all the districts.
A National Institution for One Health, four New National Institutes for Virology, a Regional Research Platform for WHO southeast Asia Region, nine Biosafety Level III laboratories, five New Regional National Centre for Disease Control will be set up as part of the scheme.
