India to increase public health spending to 2.5% of its GDP by 2025: PM Modi
Sushmi Dey | TNN | Dec 12, 2018, 21:39 IST
Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the 4th Partners' Forum 2018 (AP) NEW DELHI: Lives of around 840 more children under five years of age are being saved every day, as compared to four years ago because of government led health intervention, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said while inaugurating a global conference on maternal and child health in New Delhi on Wednesday.
"The country has 25 million newborns. Our robust facility-based newborn care system, which provides care to more than 1 million babies through 794 state-of-the-art special newborn care units, has served as a successful model. As a result of our interventions, 840 additional lives of children under five are being saved each day in India as compared to four years ago,” he said, highlighting government initiatives including intensified immunisation campaign, increased institutional deliveries and the latest National Nutrition Mission.
Emphasising on his government's focus on healthcare, Modi said Ayushman Bharat epitomises political commitment and has been hailed globally as an integrated health programme. He said the high out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by families to avail medical care in India worried his government and to address the issue, it launched the state-run health insurance scheme aimed at providing cashless health insurance cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year, targeting 10.74 crore ‘deprived’ families.
Modi delivered the keynote address at 2018 Partners’ Forum – a fourth in a series of global high level multi-country, multi-stakeholder events for sustainable global momentum on issues related to maternal and child health. The two-day conference, being hosted by India this year, is being attended by nearly 1200 delegates from 85 countries.
The government’s flagship campaign to expand vaccination coverage - Intensified Mission Indradhanush - was featured as a success story, among 12 best practices selected from all over the world.
Under the Mission Indradhanush, the government reached 32.8 million children and 8.4 million pregnant women over the last three years while the number of vaccines under immunisation programme has been increased from seven to 12.
Addressing the global audience, Modi said the government is set to increase its public health spending to 2.5% of its GDP by 2025.
Currently, at 1.15% of GDP, India is among the lowest spending countries on health as a share of its GDP.
“This will mean an actual increase of 345% over the current share, in just eight years. We will continue to work for the betterment of people. Women, children and youth will continue to remain at the heart of every policy, programme or initiative,” Modi said.
The PM said that India was one of the first countries, to advocate focused attention on adolescence and implement an extensive health promotion and prevention programme for adolescents.
Modi said when his government assumed office in 2014, “India was losing more than 44,000 mothers”. The Centre then launched the “Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan”, as part of which doctors pledged one day of service per month to this campaign and 16 million ante-natal care check-ups were performed.
About the government's work in the women health sector, Modi said more than half of Indian women did not have access to clean fuel for cooking till 2015. The “Ujjwala Yojana” provided cleaner cooking options to 58 million women.
"The country has 25 million newborns. Our robust facility-based newborn care system, which provides care to more than 1 million babies through 794 state-of-the-art special newborn care units, has served as a successful model. As a result of our interventions, 840 additional lives of children under five are being saved each day in India as compared to four years ago,” he said, highlighting government initiatives including intensified immunisation campaign, increased institutional deliveries and the latest National Nutrition Mission.
Emphasising on his government's focus on healthcare, Modi said Ayushman Bharat epitomises political commitment and has been hailed globally as an integrated health programme. He said the high out-of-pocket expenditure incurred by families to avail medical care in India worried his government and to address the issue, it launched the state-run health insurance scheme aimed at providing cashless health insurance cover of up to Rs 5 lakh per family per year, targeting 10.74 crore ‘deprived’ families.
Modi delivered the keynote address at 2018 Partners’ Forum – a fourth in a series of global high level multi-country, multi-stakeholder events for sustainable global momentum on issues related to maternal and child health. The two-day conference, being hosted by India this year, is being attended by nearly 1200 delegates from 85 countries.
The government’s flagship campaign to expand vaccination coverage - Intensified Mission Indradhanush - was featured as a success story, among 12 best practices selected from all over the world.
Under the Mission Indradhanush, the government reached 32.8 million children and 8.4 million pregnant women over the last three years while the number of vaccines under immunisation programme has been increased from seven to 12.
Addressing the global audience, Modi said the government is set to increase its public health spending to 2.5% of its GDP by 2025.
Currently, at 1.15% of GDP, India is among the lowest spending countries on health as a share of its GDP.
“This will mean an actual increase of 345% over the current share, in just eight years. We will continue to work for the betterment of people. Women, children and youth will continue to remain at the heart of every policy, programme or initiative,” Modi said.
The PM said that India was one of the first countries, to advocate focused attention on adolescence and implement an extensive health promotion and prevention programme for adolescents.
Modi said when his government assumed office in 2014, “India was losing more than 44,000 mothers”. The Centre then launched the “Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan”, as part of which doctors pledged one day of service per month to this campaign and 16 million ante-natal care check-ups were performed.
About the government's work in the women health sector, Modi said more than half of Indian women did not have access to clean fuel for cooking till 2015. The “Ujjwala Yojana” provided cleaner cooking options to 58 million women.
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