JK’s Primary Healthcare Hit Due To Low Proportion Of 24×7 PHCs:NITI Aayog

The primary healthcare services in Jammu and Kashmir continue to remain in shambles due to low proportion of functional 24×7 Primary Health Centres (PHCs), important for basic health services to community.
The recently released ‘Healthy States Progressive India’ report by NITI Aayog notes that progress made by states and Union Territories, J&K is having low proportional of functional PHCs.
“The percentage of functional 24/7 PHCs decreased in last two years,” said the report that studied health outcomes from 2015-16 to 2016-18.

The revelations are based on the data of Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW).
“The presence of 24/7 PHCs are critical for providing basic package of health services to people and for reducing workload on tertiary care facilities,” the report said.

The required number of functional round clock PHCs per State was calculated using a standard of such PHCs per population and for reducing the workload at higher level facilities.

The report said many larger states are yet to achieve the target.
“Only Chhattisgarh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram, and Daman and Diu have achieved the target of the required number of 24×7 PHCs, while Kerala, Goa, Puducherry, Lakshadweep, Delhi, Chandigarh, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands are yet to operationalise such PHC,” it said.

As per the report from 2015-16 to 2017-18, Chhattisgarh championed among 21 larger states to achieve this goal and the percentage of functional 24×7 PHC increased by about three folds in the last two years.
The NITI Aayog report focuses on overall and incremental improvement over a two-year period in states and UTs, which are categorised as larger states, small states and UTs, to ensure comparison among similar entities.
Last year, the composite Health Index 2017 was disseminated for the first time.
The Health Index-2018 is the second such attempt focusing on measuring and highlighting incremental improvements in healthcare.
J&K has also figured among four states having less than 80 percent birth registrations, revealing the poor data management.
The report said Jammu and Kashmir is yet to apply for accreditation of quality standards by standard quality assurance programs in hundreds of hospitals and has failed to ensure high quality health services.-Rising Kashmir