The Hindu : 'Improve delivery of healthcare to urban poor'

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 01, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore

'Improve delivery of healthcare to urban poor'

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE June 30. Focus on service delivery, integrating government facilities through upgrading and re-organisation, strengthening government, private, and NGO partnership, and ensuring sustainability should be some of the key strategies in implementing the `Urban Health Programme' under the second phase of the Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) Project, S.S.Brar, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, has said.

Speaking at the national consultation on `Improving health of the urban poor: Lessons learned and the way forward', organised jointly by the U.S. Agency for International Development - Environmental Health Project (USAID-EHP) and the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Mr. Brar said there was a need to focus on the weak primary healthcare network with no referral linkages, and rapid urbanisation was leading to the proliferation of slums.

Other problems included non-existence of planned development of infrastructure for delivery of healthcare services and lack of coordinated efforts, leading to multiplicity of service providers.

The aim of the programme was to improve the health status of the urban poor by providing an integrated and sustainable system for primary healthcare services in urban areas, he added.

Presenting a paper on `Improving health of the urban poor: The policy framework', Renu Khosla, Associate Professor, said all the four policies of the Government — National Health Policy, Population Policy, Nutrition Policy, and the Draft National Slum Policy — that have programmes for the urban poor needed to be reviewed, and an urban health action plan had to be formulated to address the health needs of the urban poor more effectively.

Basic services

Massie Bateman, Senior Child Health Adviser, Office of Population, Health and Nutrition, USAID, said some of the major issues concerned with providing better health services for the urban poor included access to basic services which would require engaging non-health sectors and working effectively with private service providers.

Effective management and creation of information was necessary for programmes to be effective.

This should include describing the needs of the urban poor and how to identify the vulnerable population.

There was a need to come out with locally appropriate solutions, he added.

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