Annual Report to the People on Health

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare published the first Annual Report to the People on Health in September 2010. The report’s objective was to examine critical macro-level issues related to health, in particular, the constraints faced by the government in providing universal healthcare, and the challenges in the organisation, financing and governance of health services.  The report provides information about key health indicators such as life expectancy at birth, infant mortality and maternal mortality, and explains the variation in their numbers in different states. It also provides an overview of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), which was launched in 2005 to revitalise and scale up basic health services in rural areas. Besides this, it discusses the non-availability of skilled healthcare providers and their uneven distribution across the country, and suggests remedies for this problem. Lastly, the report lists key policy issues related to health that, according to the ministry, need to be debated widely and drafted into a new health policy. Some of these issues are increased public investment in healthcare, public-private partnerships in the health sector, access to safe drinking water and sanitation, good quality education for healthcare providers, use of modern technology and technological audits of the sector, rising out-of-pocket expenditure on drugs, reduced emphasis on preventive healthcare, limited participation of community organisations, and investment of the states in primary healthcare.