Current Affairs - Miscellaneous - Discussion

In order to establish 1,50,000 the Health and Wellness Centres (HWC) by 2022, share and give a common understanding of the multiple components to enable HWC to deliver comprehensive primary health care, a two-day conference was organized under Ayushman Bharat. The conference was organized by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare with technical support from the National Health Systems Resource Centre, recently. Workshop proceedings started with an overview presentation of the various components of Comprehensive Primary Health Care. It emphasized the critical importance of selecting motivated candidates as Mid-Level Health Providers and strengthening the Primary Health Care team including the Multi-Purpose Workers (male and female) and ASHA. The importance of the shift from selective to comprehensive primary health care, the uninterrupted availability of medicines for chronic diseases, and the criticality in establishing a seamless continuum of care, to build trust and confidence in the public health system and in reducing out of pocket expenditure were highlighted. In addition, the importance of integrating active case finding for tuberculosis in HWC to meet the national commitment of TB elimination was emphasized.