Since assuming the post of Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh following this year’s Legislative Assembly election in the state, Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy has made healthcare a priority. One action he has taken is a hike in the wages of the state’s community health workers. Accredited social health activists (ASHAs) staff India’s healthcare system in […]
Andhra Pradesh
Vardhan reaches out to holdout states on Ayushman Bharat
The Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Dr Harsh Vardhan, has reached out to the states where the Centre’s flagship healthcare scheme has yet to be implemented, exhorting them to do so. Vardhan has made strengthening the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY), popularly known as ‘Ayushman Bharat’, a top priority during his second […]
World Environment Day highlights a health crisis
World Environment Day is observed annually on June 5th to commemorate the importance of conserving our environment from the many threats it faces. For India, World Environment Day offers a valuable opportunity to recognise one of the major issues confronting the nation: its poor environmental health, ranked as the worst in the world in the […]
Ayushman Bharat: The coming expansion
The BJP’s agenda, as outlined in its manifesto for this year’s Lok Sabha polls, was vindicated with a sweeping electoral victory – and the Prime Minister did not exclude the subject of health or his flagship Ayushman Bharat from his victory speech after the results were declared. “The victory, he said, was not his, but […]
When voters boycotted polls because of water scarcity in Gujarat
In Gujarat last month, voters turned to the polls to protest water scarcity in the state – by sitting them out entirely. The 17th Lok Sabha polls in Ahmedabad was the scene of fanfare on April 23rd, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi cast his vote in this year’s elections. However, elsewhere in the state, many […]
Anti-rabies vaccine shortages continue
Shortages of the anti-rabies vaccine and other essential medicines continue to plague public hospitals across the country, with states turning to one another for assistance. So far, the onus for supply has been on Tamil Nadu. Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Karnataka have also requested for supplies of essential medicines including the anti-rabies vaccine from the […]
Haemophiliacs struggle in silence in India
Yesterday marked World Haemophilia Day, an opportunity to raise awareness of the condition and its largely hidden footprint in India. For India’s many haemophiliacs, suffering is often in silence. Haemophilia is a genetic condition which means sufferers do not have enough clotting factor. This refers to a group of proteins in the blood which works […]
India’s water woes are bigger than you think
It is not even summer season and great swathes of India’s land are suffering from drought, recently published data reveals. This is according to an IndiaSpend analysis of figures from the Drought Early Warning System (DEWS), which contains dire implications for an enormous number of Indians and a sizeable proportion of the country’s land. At […]
Lack of forensic doctors highlights a national crisis
Shocking findings from Punjab have served to highlight one of the biggest issues confronting public health in India: the country’s lack of specialist doctors. Doctors untrained in the field of forensics perform eighty percent of autopsies in the state. This is resulting in “poor quality of work”, warns Dr D S Bhullar, president of the […]
Modicare begins on September 25th. Here’s what we know so far.
The BJP government’s large-scale health insurance initiative was rolled out in some states today, to coincide with Independence Day celebrations across the country. Though some anticipated a full-scale launch of the programme, the scheme was not launched nationwide but began a gradual rollout in select states. Full rollout of the scheme is expected on September […]