Launch a national tribal health mission

Source: This post is created based on the article “Launch a national tribal health mission” published in The Hindu on 9^th August 2022.

Syllabus: Issues related to health, Schemes, and programs for the vulnerable sections

Context: The health of the Tribal in India is in a dismal state. A health revolution for the tribal people of India is the need of the hour.

Nearly 11 crore tribal people (Scheduled Tribes (ST) as per Census of India (2011) live in India. It is the second-highest population in the world. However, their health state is in dismal condition.

As per the Lancet report, 2016, India has the second-highest infant mortality rate for the tribal people. Pakistan tops this list.

Another report, i.e. the first national report on the state of India’s tribal people’s health, highlights the health state of the Tribal in India.

What are the findings of the report?

1) When it comes to Tribal welfare, the government’s major focus goes on the scheduled areas. However, it is found that half of the tribal population lives outside the scheduled areas, where they are found to be mostly powerless.

2) Despite the significant reduction in the Child Mortality rate among tribal from 135 in 1988 in the NFHS-1 to 57 in 2014 NFHS-4, the percentage of the excess of under-five mortality among STs compared to others has widened.

3) Child malnutrition is 50% higher in tribal children: 42% compared to 28% in others.

4) Malaria and tuberculosis are three to 11 times more common among the tribal people.

5) Even the incidence of non-communicable diseases is increasing. For example; the cases of hypertension and diabetes, and worse, mental health problems such as depression and addiction leading to cancer and suicide, are increasing.

6) Tribal people heavily depend on government-run public health care institutions. However, there is a 27% to 40% deficit in the number of such facilities in tribal areas. There is a 33% to 84% deficit in medical doctors.

7) There is hardly any participation from tribal people in designing health care facilities.

8) The official policy of additional allocation under Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) has been flouted by the state governments. There is even no accounts of accountability on how much of the allocated amount has been spent.

What should be done?

Following are some recommendations given by a government-formed committee for the health of tribal people:

First, launch a National Tribal Health Action Plan to bring the status of health and healthcare to par with the respective State averages in the next 10 years.

Second, the committee suggested nearly 80 measures to address the 10 priority health problems, the health care gap, the human resource gap, and the governance problems.

Third, the allocation of additional money so that the per capita government health expenditure on tribal people becomes equal to the stated goal of the National Health Policy (2017), i.e. 2.5% of the per capita GDP.

Government must seriously consider the implementation of these recommendations.