Foremost priority is to provide comprehensive health services: Nadda

Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda on Thursday said that his ministry's foremost priority would be to provide assured and comprehensive health services, which will offer an assured set of services encompassing preventive, promotive, curative and rehabilitative healthcare.

Speaking at the second meeting of the Mission Steering Group (MSG) of the National Health Mission (NHP), Nadda said that healthcare needs to be patient centric, which is not clinically appropriate but where dignity of the patient is also respected.

He stated that his ministry proposes to give a major thrust to improving quality of healthcare in public facilities.

Nadda further said the government is dedicated to the concept of cooperative federalism wherein the Centre will work with the state governments as true partners and support them financially and technically to strengthen their health systems.

"While we will continue to strengthen the NHM approaches, there will be shift in emphasis based on our learning from various evaluations and Common Review Missions," he said.

Nadda cautioned the states against wastages in public health system while stressing the need for collective effort to improve the efficiencies.

He stated that the National Rural Health Mission and the National Urban Health Mission together form the basis of the ministry's effort at health system reform. He hoped that the states would be able to incorporate learning from NRHM in implementing the NUHM in order to rapidly scale up implementation.

The Health Minister assured the members of the steering group that their valuable suggestions to further enrich and strengthen the NHM will be discussed and incorporated.

Union Urban Development Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, Union Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi, Union Minister for Human Resource Development Smriti Irani and Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot were also present in the meeting.