National Health Policy 2017

The policy aims to attain the highest possible level of health and well-being for every citizen through a preventive and promotive healthcare orientation.
It seeks to provide and deliver healthcare services, particularly to underprivileged and socially vulnerable groups of people in the country.
Under the policy, every family will have a health card to access primary care facilities and a nationwide package of services.
Health and hygiene to become part of the school curriculum – Yoga would be introduced much more widely in schools and workplaces to promote good health.
The policy envisages a three-dimensional integration of AYUSH systems by promoting cross referrals, co-location and integrative practices across systems of medicines.
The policy also addresses health security and promotes Make in India for drugs and devices. It seeks to establish a Public Health Management Cadre (PHMC) in all states.
It also proposes raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP in a time-bound manner.

Specific Quantitative Goals and Objectives

Health Status and Programme Impact Life

Expectancy and healthy life Increase Life Expectancy at birth from 67.5 to 70 by 2025.
Establish regular tracking of the Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) Index as a measure of the burden of disease and its trends by major categories by 2022.
Reduction of TFR to 2.1 at national and sub-national levels by 2025.

Mortality by Age and/ or Cause

Reduce Under Five Mortality to 23 by 2025 and MMR from current levels to 100 by 2020.
Reduce infant mortality rate to 28 by 2019.
Reduce neonatal mortality to 16 and stillbirth rate to “single digit” by 2025.

Reduction of disease prevalence/ incidence

Achieve the global target of 2020 which is also termed a target of 90:90:90, for HIV/AIDS i.e, – 90% of all people living with HIV know their HIV status, – 90% of all people diagnosed with HIV infection receive sustained antiretroviral therapy and 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression.
Achieve and maintain the elimination status of Leprosy by 2018, Kala-Azar by 2017 and Lymphatic Filariasis in endemic pockets by 2017. To achieve and maintain a cure rate of >85% in new sputum-positive patients for TB and reduce the incidence of new cases, to reach elimination status by 2025.
To reduce the prevalence of blindness to 0.25/ 1000 by 2025 and disease burden by one-third from current levels.
To reduce premature mortality from cardiovascular diseases, cancer, diabetes or chronic respiratory diseases by 25% by 2025.

Health Systems Performance

Coverage of Health Services

Increase utilization of public health facilities by 50% from current levels by 2025.
Antenatal care coverage to be sustained above 90% and skilled attendance at birth above 90% by 2025.
More than 90% of the newborn are fully immunized by one year of age by 2025.
Meet family planning needs above 90% at national and sub-national levels by 2025.
80% of known hypertensive and diabetic individuals at the household level maintain “controlled disease status” by 2025.

Cross-Sectoral goals related to health

The relative reduction in the prevalence of current tobacco use by 15% by 2020 and 30% by 2025.
Reduction of 40% in the n prevalence of stunting of under-five children by 2025.
Access to safe water and sanitation to all by 2020 (Swachh Bharat Mission).
Reduction of occupational injury by half from current levels of 334 per lakh agricultural workers by 2020.
National/ State level tracking of selected health behaviour.

Health Systems strengthening

Health finance

Increase health expenditure by Government as a percentage of GDP from the existing 1.1 5 % to 2.5 % by 2025.
Increase State sector health spending to > 8% of their budget by 2020.
Decrease in the proportion of households facing catastrophic health expenditure from the current levels by 25%, by 2025.

Health Infrastructure and Human Resource

Ensure the availability of paramedics and doctors as per the Indian Public Health Standard (IPHS) norm in high-priority districts by 2020.
Increase community health volunteers to population ratio per IPHS norm, in high-priority districts by 2025.
Establish primary and secondary care facilities per norms in high-priority districts (population and time to reach norms) by 2025.

Health Management Information

Ensure district–level electronic database of information on health system components by 2020.
Strengthen the health surveillance system and establish registries for diseases of public health importance by 2020.
Establish federated integrated health information architecture, Health Information Exchanges and National Health Information Network by 2025.

Policy Thrust

Ensuring Adequate Investment -The policy proposes a potentially achievable target of raising public health expenditure to 2.5% of the GDP in a time-bound manner.

Preventive and Promotive Health – The policy identifies coordinated action on seven priority areas for improving the environment for health: The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan Balanced, healthy diets and regular exercises. Addressing tobacco, alcohol and substance abuse Yatri Suraksha – preventing deaths due to rail and road traffic accidents Nirbhaya Nari – action against gender violence Reduced stress and improved safety in the workplace Reducing indoor and outdoor air pollution

Organization of Public Health Care Delivery – The policy proposes seven key policy shifts in organizing health care services.

Criticism of the Policy

The policy duplicates portions of the Health Section 2017 Budget speech.
It reiterates health spending targets set by the High-Level Expert Group (HLEG) set up by the erstwhile Planning Commission for the 12th Five-Year Plan (which ends on March 31, 2017)
It also fails to make health a justifiable right through National Health Rights Act like the Right to Education Act 2005 did for school education.
A health cess was a path-breaking idea in the Health Ministry’s draft policy; it has now been dropped from the final policy
Through the 2002 policy, the government promised to increase health spending to 2 per cent of GDP, which never happened under the National Democratic Alliance (NDA-1) or during the 10 years of the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) administration.
Old Targets and New Deadlines:
The IMR in 2015-16 was 41.
The MMR in 2015-16 is 167.
The 2002 NHP had set the target of eliminating leprosy by 2005, kala-azar by 2010 and lymphatic filariasis by 2015–none of which could be achieved yet.