India sets targets to slash neonatal mortality, with known interventions that haven’t spread enough

The launching of the Sansad Adarsh Gram Yojana by the Government of India on 11th October, 2014 heralds the political will to support village development. The concept , in principle, urges members of both upper and lower house to adopt a village for its all round development. This encompasses the rival political parties to come out of the political barriers in accomplishing the hard task of providing facilities to the citizens which often does not reach the people due to political clash of ethos and egos. The concept revolves around participation of the citizen in self help, empowerment of local self administering bodies such as Gram Panchayat and overall development of the village. The ideal village, presumably should require provision of infrastructure for good roads and connectivity with other parts of the state and country, 24 hour safe water supply, adequate sanitation facilities in terms of sanitary toilets for every household, provision of 24 hour electricity supply (help of natural sources such as wind mills or solar panels would be desirable), affordable living conditions in terms of housing, availability of proper waste disposal facilities, school for children with teachers and infrastructure, a functioning health centre with facilities for routine laboratory investigations, essential drugs, manpower etc. In addition, there should be provision for television, internet connectivity to get access to latest news, communication etc. At least one household member should be working or earning for livelihood. In case no member is working, opportunities with support from the Government for small scale income generating activities, agriculture, farming etc, depending upon the prevailing geographical location should be provided. There should be promotion of local small scale industry and indigenous skills of the people.

On the health front, provision of health security by providing health insurance for the people is a must. Involvement of private insurance players at an affordable premium or based upon the income, slabs could be earmarked for the payment of premiums. There is a strong felt need to reduce out of pocket hospital or healthcare expenses by provision of essential drugs, essential routine investigations free of cost in the health care setting. Such a measure would invariably reduce the burden of healthcare expenses on the people. The other measures would include identification of disease burden in every village and health actions should be based on that parameter. The existing health care programmes need to devise a way to integrate all the activities and measure health burden in a holistic manner. The programme activities should be based on that health profile. Such a data bank needs to be collected on yearly basis to find out the changing pattern of diseases and for monitoring of the health activities. This should be given a priority since people cannot work if he or she is unhealthy and it will be counter productive for an ideal village concept.