Insufficiency and prescribing medicines from outside continues  CRM draws attention to ‘irrational’ use and non-availability of essential medicines Supplies are mostly top-down, based on availability instead of being demand-based No State provides free medicines to below the poverty line (BPL) patients under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM). “The insufficiency of drugs and thereby the imperative of prescribing medicines from outside continue widely. This could also be linked to insufficiency of understanding...

Copenhagen showed how fast and far India has traveled geo-politically. The same, alas, cannot be said about the health of the nation. On the international stage, India’s relentless focus on equity made us proud. The time has come to apply that principle at home. India’s ailing health delivery system is viewed as a worthy but dull topic on a normal day in a typical newsroom in the country. Typically, such neglected...

Maintenance of accounts not proper, it says  Most States yet to adopt e-banking Delay in release of funds from State health societies to district health societies The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India has expressed dissatisfaction over the funds flow management under the National Rural health Mission (NRHM) and recommended that it be rationalised with appropriate norms and criteria. The maintenance of accounts at the State, district and below levels was...

Many did not use health centres for institutional deliveries  The Mission’s goal is to achieve 100 per cent institutional deliveries by 2012 Long term targets were not prescribed by 17 States The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has criticised the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) for “hampering” the smooth implementation of the Janani Suraksha Yojana – maternity benefit scheme — by delays and irregularities in the payment of incentives. In its latest...

Some of the poor states in the country that were the focus of the big-ticket National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) have actually ended up being discriminated against in the Central allocation as compared to funds released to some of the rich and efficient states that were already high on the basic health parameters. This has been found in a review of NRHM, the UPA government's most ambitious welfare scheme after...