Providing assured and comprehensive health services our priority: J P Nadda

He stated this at the second meeting of the Mission Steering Group (MSG) of the National Health Mission (NHP), here.

Pointing out that one of the key areas of concern is quality of healthcare in public health system, the Health Minister said that healthcare needs to be patient centric, which is not clinically appropriate but where dignity of the patient is also respected.

He stated that the Ministry proposes to give a major thrust to improving quality of healthcare in public facilities.

On the occasion, the Health Minister said that decentralization lies at the heart of the health sector reform process under NHM, as also a consciousness that the principles of federalism and subsidiary are paramount.

He added that the government is committed to the concept of cooperative federalism wherein the Centre will work with the state governments as true partners, and support them financially and technically to strengthen their health systems.

Nadda added that “While we will continue to strengthen the NHM approaches, there will be shift in emphasis based on our learning from various evaluations and Common Review Missions”.

He further said that the states must increase their healthcare spend as Government of India also tries to supplement their efforts.

He also cautioned the states against wastages in public health system while stressing the need for collective effort to improve the efficiencies.

The Minister stated that the National Rural Health Mission and the National Urban Health Mission together form the basis of the Ministry’s effort at health system reform. He hoped that in implementing NUHM, the states would be able to incorporate learning from NRHM, in order to rapidly scale up implementation.

The Minister assured the members of the Steering Group that their valuable suggestions to further enrich and strengthen the NHM will be discussed and incorporated.