Forced to migrate to sugar belt for work, women face multiple reproductive health problems, due to the back-breaking work and poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, including menstrual hygiene. This situation along with an absence of public health facilities, allows a fertile and lucrative ground to the private healthcare facilities to provide unnecessary and extreme treatments even for minor gynaecological ailments, including the removal of their wombs. More than 4,605 hysterectomies are said to have been performed in the Beed district alone in the last three years.
An analysis of disability among the elderly and its covariates during the period 2005–12 is provided using data from the two rounds of the nationally representative India Human Development Survey, conducted in 2005 and 2012. The increase in life expectancy has not translated into a healthier life, as prevalence of disabilities, their severity, and their association with non-communicable diseases have risen. Given the lack of access to assistive devices, specialised medical services, rehabilitation, and stigma attached to disability, the temptation to offer simplistic but largely medical solutions must be resisted. Instead, a multidimensional strategy is needed that helps the elderly overcome physical and socio-economic barriers as well as address the issues related to prevention and treatment of their underlying health conditions.
Four states—Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Uttar Pradesh—together account for around 45% of stunted children in India. The existing literature makes a case for delivery of a host of specific interventions referred to as the direct nutrition interventions, along with sector-wise or systemic interventions, to bring about significant reductions in prevalence of stunting among children. An analysis of the delivery of DNIs in the said states shows that apart from the decline in fiscal priority for the DNIs during 2014–15 to 2017–18, there are also significant resource gaps for some of these interventions, which underscores the need for enhancing fiscal priority for these interventions.
“Peers” are a resource that can be tapped into to support a wide variety of people in the mental health system. These are people who have lived experiences of recovery in mental health. This kind of support offers the peers a meaningful work opportunity, financial and social empowerment, and consolidates their recoveries. It also helps those who are currently suffering by enabling them to experience a peer’s caring and supportive assistance, patient listening and helpful advice in view of the hurried and professional approaches of mental health professionals.
The National Nutrition Mission has explicitly recognised the multisectoral nature of the challenge of malnutrition and has made “convergence” one of its key pillars. However, it does not yet have sharp operational clarity on how stakeholders can ensure that multiple programmes reach the same mother–child dyad in the first 1,000-day period. The article illustrates how data on co-coverage of interventions can be used to plan for and assess the success of efforts to strengthen convergence.
This article discusses the understanding of polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) among medical professionals in the patriarchal framework and how women experience infantalisation at the hands of doctors.
To reduce the burden of maternal undernutrition in India, select nutrition interventions are delivered to pregnant women at scale through the National Health Mission. But in Purnea, a district in Bihar, delivery is constrained by poor planning and budgeting, delayed fund flow, and shortage of infrastructure and human resources; and funds are underutilised.
Reminiscent of poverty debates, serious undernutrition in India risks becoming a measurement quibble, unless we talk about unequal development gains and the answerability of governments towards less empowered citizens. Based on the simple counting of food consumed by 240 households and conversations with women, this article explores the contrast between local knowledge of what constitutes a “good diet” and the deficient meals consumed by people in Odisha, a state in eastern India. Effective interventions need to look beyond “maternal responsibility” and address entitlement uncertainties and gender inequality, in order to ensure essential nutrition and good health of vulnerable groups such as women and children.
The question that needs to be asked is, how many of those being treated for mental illness are recovering? Does the current treatment regimen help people with recovery, or is it only a “treatment” option with an entry and no exit point? Psychiatric professionals need to focus on recovery.
Examining how health policy has fared in India during the last five years shows the constriction of finances for major programmes like the National Health Mission and Reproductive and Child Health Programme that has led to under-resourced public systems. The Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana health insurance scheme would only end up diverting public resources towards commercial insurance companies and private hospitals, while having doubtful benefits for community health.
Maharashtra, with its drought-prone areas, is one of the states with the largest number of male farmer suicides. In the aftermath of these suicides, women farmers struggle on multiple fronts. A poor public health system further fails them and aggravates their plight.
Since April 2014, funds for various centrally sponsored schemes, including the National Health Mission, are being transferred to implementing agencies through state treasuries. This has added an additional layer in the institutional structure for nhm fund flows. We analyse the utilisation of nhm funds in 29 states in two recent years, and the time taken for release of these funds from state treasuries to implementing agencies in three selected states: Bihar, Maharashtra, and Odisha. On average, only about 55% of funds allocated for nhm were utilised in 2015–16 and 2016–17. In Bihar and Maharashtra, this was partly due to significant delays in release of funds from state treasuries to implementing agencies. The delays were a result of complex administrative procedures associated with the release of nhm funds from state treasuries.
