In order to enhance the prospects of social development, sound and adequate health care policies are needed particularly in the fields of geriatric and maternal health care. Discuss.
Poor health constitutes suffering and deprivation of the most fundamental kind. Diseases impact the well being, burden family, weaken societies, and squander potential. Over the years, significant strides have been made in increasing life expectancy and reducing some of the common killers associated with child and maternal mortality.
Linkages between social development and health care:
- In developing countries, breaking the vicious circle of poverty and ill-health is an essential condition for development.
- Health is pertinent for the realization of basic human needs and for a better quality of life. Health is a causative factor that affects a country’s aggregate level of economic growth.
- The rising out-of-pocket expenditures on healthcare pushes around 32-39 million Indians below the poverty line annually.
- Women and elderly are one of the most vulnerable sections of society. In this context, access to quality health care and sound health policies are crucial for their healthy development, reducing deprivation, and social empowerment.
Geriatric Health:
- Ageing is a continuous, irreversible, universal process, which starts from conception till the death of an individual.
- However,the age at which one’s productive contribution declines and one tendsto be economically dependent can probably be treated asthe onset of the aged stage of life. National Elderly Policy defines people of 60+ age group as elderly.
- With well-designed and judicious investments, ageing population can help build-up human, social, economic and environmental capital.
- However, this would call for investing in all the phases of life, fostering enabling societies, and creating flexible but vibrant environment for building a society for all ages.
- In order to generate comprehensive data on social, economic and health conditions of the elderly, the Government undertook Longitudinal Aging Study of India.
- Other initiatives of the Government of India:
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- Integrated Programme for Older Persons (IPOP)
- Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana (RVY)
- Indira Gandhi National Old Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS)
- Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana (VPBY)
Maternal Care:
- Women are strong pillars of any society. Sustainable development in India can only happen through maternal and child care.
- Maternal health is an important aspect of the development in terms of increasing equity and reducing poverty.
- The survival and well being of mothers is not only important in their own right but are also central to solving larger economic, social, and developmental challenges.
- The Sustainable Development Goal 3 pertains to maternal health, where the target is to reduce maternal mortality ratio (MMR) to 70 per 100000 live births.
- Institutional deliveries are an important means to achieve maternal health. Key initiatives in this are:
- Janani Suraksha Yojana
- Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram
- Midwifery initiative aims to create a cadre of skilled nurses for providing compassionate women-centred, reproductive, maternal and newborn healthcare.
Healthcare has a major role to play in reducing social exclusion at the local level, due to its impact on employment, working conditions and household income. It can drive forward the implementation of local and national goals for sustainable development.
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