'Urban Health Mission' to be launched soon: Ramadoss

The Union Health Minister Anbumani Ramadoss while delivering the presidential address at the 12th Convocation of National Institute of Mental and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) on February 22 in Bangalore unraveled the Union government plan to launch ‘Urban Health Mission'.

The mission will provide health cover to 5.

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5 crore people and 450 towns and cities across the country.

Giving the detail of the plan based on the success of Rural Health Mission, the health minister said that centre has planned to invest around Rs 8000 crore in the four years in UHM and initially the programme will be implemented in only 450 cities and towns targeting mainly the slum areas. He later said that both UHM and Rural Health Mission (RHM) will be synergized.

Like health workers known as Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in RHM, UHM will have Urban Social Health Activists (USHAs), under UHM 7-10% of its budget will be invested for street and homeless children.

Under the proposed UHM government would pay premium for slum dwellers and the urban local bodies would be given jurisdiction to monitor implementation of the programme.

An USHA for every 200 populations and self-help groups of women, Mahila Arogya Samitis, would be formed for every 100 households to monitor health issues at the grass root level.

The government will be ensured that under the programme ambulances will be made available within 7-15 minutes of a telephone call anywhere in the country by 2010. An emergency and trauma programme have been envisioned with effort to make highway safety at an initial cost of Rs 760 crore with ambulances at every 50-km stretch on the highways, trauma centres on a distance of every 100 km, specialty centres at every 150 km and a telephone facility at every 5 km.

This announcement holds significance when urban health is disordered and poor have least access to health care and are suffering from malnutrition and infectious disease. It is estimated that Indian urban poor includes 100 million and according to United Nation Human Settlement Programme this figure might be doubled by 2020.