Centre to launch health mission on Jan 20

Mission will cover 220 million persons nationally; 23.6 million in state

In an effort to provide an adequate and efficient urban public health delivery system to effectively cater to unmet needs of the urban poor, the government is launching the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) from January 20, 2014. As part of the nationwide launch, the NUHM programmes will be launched at select cities in Karnataka.

To begin with, the NUHM will be launched across five cities including Bangalore, Mangalore, Mysore, Bagalkote and Ullal, a medium-sized town in Dakshina Kannada district. The government of India has sanctioned Rs 53 crore for the implementation of the mission and the state government has contributed Rs 20 crore for the year 2013-14.

"By 2014-15 all district headquarters will be brought under NUHM and subsequently all towns with over 50,000 persons will be included," said U T Khadar, minister for health and family welfare.

On May 1, 2013, the Union Cabinet had cleared the NUHM. It will cover all cities and towns with a population of over 50,000, apart from covering all the state capitals and district headquarters, irrespective of the popula-tion size. It is estimated that the NUHM will cover a population of over 220 million people, of which an estimated 77.5 million are poor and vulnerable.

The emphasis of the mission is to improve the exis-ting public health delivery system with a thrust on making available adequate health and human resources, upg-rading the existing health facilities and also establis-hing new specialist health facilities, Khadar told reporters, here today.

For the present year, it is proposed to strengthen 98 urban primary health cent-res (UPHCs) and construct 18 new UPHCs besides setting up of a 30 bedded urban community health centre at Ullal town, he said.

As part of the programme, 49 health kiosks (35 for Bangalore, five each for Mysore and Mangalore and four for Ullal town) would be set up which will be operated by a nurse during the working hours. Health kiosks will provide free facilities like BP check up, blood sugar check up and basic medici-nes to people under the below poverty line catego-ries. Besides, 8 mobile urban health units will be operated, he said.

To implement NUHM in the state, the government has approved addition of 126 medical officers, 396 auxiliary nursing midwives. About 1,530 ASHA workers will be engaged and 1,539 Mahila Arogya Samitis will be formed.

The urban health mission will be implemented with the active involvement of urban local bodies in all the mega cities including Bangalore. In other cities and towns, the NUHM will be implemented through the district health centres.

Under NUHM, existing urban family welfare centres, maternity homes and other public health institutions will be strengthened. Outreach services will be provided through female health workers (FHWs) and Auxiliary Nursing Midwives (ANMs) headquartered at the UPHCs.

As per Census 2011, 23.6 million people live in urban areas in Karnataka. As a consequence of this rapid urbanization, there has been a significant rise in the urban poor population living in slums, peri-urban areas and in temporary settlements. This has led to an enormous strain on the already overburdened and weak health system.