Practice Test 16

Healthcare in India has undergone a fundamental transformation in its ambitions, organisation, and financing over the past decade, with the government taking a much more active role in ensuring that quality health services reach the large proportion of the population that had historically been excluded from adequate care by the combination of poverty, geographic isolation, and the inadequacy of public health infrastructure. The Ayushman Bharat programme, launched in 2018, represents the most significant reform of health financing in independent India's history, combining a comprehensive primary care initiative in the form of Health and Wellness Centres with the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, which provides free hospitalisation insurance coverage of five lakh rupees per year to over fifty-five crore beneficiaries from economically vulnerable families across the country. Over one lakh Health and Wellness Centres have been operationalised by converting existing sub-health centres and primary health centres across the country, expanding the range of services delivered at the community level to include screening for non-communicable diseases such as hypertension, diabetes, and common cancers, mental health services, palliative care, and eye and oral health services that previously required a visit to a district hospital. The All India Institute of Medical Sciences network has been expanded beyond the original AIIMS in New Delhi, with new institutions established in Bhopal, Patna, Jodhpur, Raipur, Bhubaneswar, Rishikesh, Nagpur, Gorakhpur, Kalyani, and numerous other cities to provide world-class tertiary care, postgraduate medical education, and cutting-edge research facilities to populations that previously had to travel to the established national institutions at great expense and inconvenience. The Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana is constructing and upgrading medical college hospitals in underserved states to reduce the severe imbalance in the availability of qualified doctors and specialists between different parts of the country. The Mission Indradhanush programme has systematically extended the reach of universal immunisation to children and pregnant women in districts and urban areas with low vaccination coverage, using intensive rounds of immunisation activity to close the gap between national targets and actual coverage rates. India eradicated polio in 2014 and has maintained polio-free status since then, a landmark public health achievement made possible by the sustained effort of health workers who reached every child in the country with oral polio vaccine. The National Health Policy 2017 set ambitious targets for increasing public health expenditure as a share of GDP, reducing mortality from preventable diseases, achieving universal health coverage, and integrating AYUSH systems of medicine with mainstream healthcare delivery. The Jan Aushadhi Kendras, operating through over ten thousand outlets across the country, dispense quality-certified generic medicines at prices significantly lower than branded equivalents, making essential medicines affordable for low-income patients. Telemedicine services expanded dramatically during the COVID-19 pandemic and have been institutionalised through the eSanjeevani platform, which has facilitated crores of teleconsultations between patients and doctors, enabling access to qualified medical advice for people in areas where qualified doctors are not present.