July 11, 2011 – Making healthcare affordable and accessible to the urban poor continues to be a major challenge in India. To address this problem, the International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS) in Mumbai, in collaboration with other agencies, has initiated a study on the “health of the urban poor”.
Further, while the Centre had proposed a National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), which may be modelled on the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), the findings of the IIPS study will act as major inputs for the mission. The IIPS project, which involves organisations like the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Population Foundation of India among others, will focus on eight states including Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.
“The study is significant because even for the simplest things in healthcare, the cost in the private sector is very high. The urban poor and homeless cannot afford it. With so much migration to urban areas, lack of affordable healthcare for the urban poor is a serious issue and it’s high time that we provided solutions for it,” said Prof F Ram, IIPS director. “Further, the Centre is planning to introduce the NUHM and work on formulating it is currently on. Our recommendations will act as inputs for the policy,” he said. As part of the project, capacity building and training of medical officers has already been initiated by IIPS in some states.
