{"id":54224,"date":"2019-12-12T15:19:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-12T09:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogadmin.forumias.com\/?p=54224"},"modified":"2020-02-26T15:20:39","modified_gmt":"2020-02-26T09:50:39","slug":"7-pm-more-equal-care-gender-gap-in-healthcare-services-12th-december-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-more-equal-care-gender-gap-in-healthcare-services-12th-december-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"7 PM | More equal care: Gender gap in Healthcare services| 12th December 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Context:\n<\/strong>Ayushman\nBharat Scheme and Gender gap in healthcare services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Global\ngender gap report:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>It is published annually by the world\neconomic forum since 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of\ngender-based disparities and tracking their progress over time.<\/li><li>Global gender gap index is a part of\nthis which measures gender equality across&nbsp;four pillars\u2013&nbsp;they are\neconomic opportunity, political empowerment, educational attainment and health\nand survival.<\/li><li>India ranks 108 in the overall index and\n147th out of 149 in the sub-index of \u2018health and survival\u2019.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Women\nin India and healthcare services:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>According to the National Family Health\nSurvey (4th round), the main reasons women do not seek healthcare services are\nbecause:<\/li><li>these\nservices are unaffordable, <\/li><li>these\nare not easily available and <\/li><li>there\naren\u2019t enough women healthcare providers.<\/li><li>Faced with limited resources, families,\nin general, prioritise the healthcare, nutrition and other needs of men at the\ncost of women.<\/li><li>Some cultural factors, such as the\nreluctance of women in some regions to consult male doctors, also constrain\ntheir access to healthcare services.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Ayushman\nBharat:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Ayushman Bharat, a flagship scheme of\nGoverment of India was launched as recommended by the National Health Policy\n2017, to achieve the vision of Universal Health Coverage (UHC). <\/li><li>This initiative has been designed on the\nlines as to meet SDG and its underlining commitment, which is &#8220;leave no\none behind&#8221;.<\/li><li>Ayushman Bharat is an attempt to move\nfrom sectoral and segmented approach of health service delivery to a\ncomprehensive need-based health care service. <\/li><li><strong>Aim\nof Ayushman Bharat:<\/strong> The aim is to undertake path breaking\ninterventions to holistically address health (covering prevention, promotion\nand ambulatory care), at primary, secondary and tertiary level. <\/li><li>The scheme adopts a continuum of care\napproach, comprising of two inter-related components:<ul><li>Health\nand Wellness Centres (HWCs)<\/li><\/ul><ul><li>Pradhan\nMantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY)<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The Government of India\nin 2018 announced the creation of 1,50,000 Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs)\nby transforming existing Sub Centres and Primary Health Centres.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Functions: <\/strong><\/li><li>These\ncentres would deliver Comprehensive Primary Health Care (CPHC) bringing\nhealthcare closer to the homes of people covering both maternal and child\nhealth services and non-communicable diseases, including free essential drugs\nand diagnostic services.<\/li><li>Health\nand Wellness Centers, are envisaged to deliver an expanded range of services to\naddress the primary health care needs of the entire population in their area,\nexpanding access, universality and equity close to the community. <\/li><li>The\nemphasis of health promotion and prevention is designed to bring focus on\nkeeping people healthy by engaging and empowering individuals and communities\nto choose healthy behaviours and make changes that reduce the risk of\ndeveloping chronic diseases and morbidities.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Pradhan\nMantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY):<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The second component under Ayushman\nBharat is PM-JAY, which aims at providing health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakhs\nper family per year for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization to over\n10.74 crores poor and vulnerable families (approximately 50 crore\nbeneficiaries). <\/li><li>There is no cap on the family size under\nthe scheme. <\/li><li>This scheme was earlier known as\nNational Health Protection Scheme (NHPS) before it was rechristened to PM-JAY. <\/li><li>PM-JAY has been rolled out for the\nbottom 40% of poor and vulnerable population. <\/li><li>The households included are based on the\ndeprivation and occupational criteria of Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 (SECC\n2011) for rural and urban areas respectively. <\/li><li>The scheme subsumed then existing\nRashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), launched in 2008. <\/li><li>PM-JAY is completely funded by the\nGovernment, and cost of implementation is shared between Central and State\nGovernments.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Features\nof Ayushman Bharat Scheme in favour of Women:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Cashless services through PM-JAY are\nhelping to narrow the gender gap in availing healthcare.<\/li><li>In earlier schemes like the Rashtriya\nSwasthya Bima Yojana families with no adult male members is one of the\ndeprivation criteria for identifying target beneficiaries. PM-JAY\u2019s design will\nhelp a large number of women.&nbsp;<\/li><li>There is no cap on the size of families.\nA cap of five beneficiaries from a family in earlier schemes worked against\nwomen. It was observed that large families preferred that their male members be\nbeneficiaries.<\/li><li>Benefits\nof the scheme are portable across the country i.e. a beneficiary can visit any\nempanelled public or private hospital for cashless treatment.<\/li><li>The packages include a large number of\nhealth conditions that exclusively, or primarily, affect women. Of the 1,393\nhealth benefit packages under PM-JAY, 116 are women centric, 64 are for only\nmen while 1,213 are common to both.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Findings\nof the analysis of initial PM-JAY data:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The initial data for utilisation of\nservices under PM-JAY shows that the use of services is more or less evenly\nbalanced among men and women. Of all hospital admission requests, 52 per cent\nwere for men and 48 per cent were for women.<\/li><li>Use by women patients is higher in 10\nspecialties \u2014 OPD diagnostics, radiation oncology, follow-ups, palliative care,\nburns management, ophthalmology, pediatric cancer, PHC and surgical oncology.\nHowever, in others like pediatric surgery, general medicine, urology and\ncardiology utilisation by male patients is higher.<\/li><li>There are variations across states as\nwell. For example, at the national level, 66 per cent of all treatment in\northopedics were received by men. However, in Kerala, the proportion is 53 per\ncent while it is much greater in UP and Maharashtra at 70 per cent.<\/li><li>Among the three major specialty services\nprovided by PM-JAY, \u201concology, cardiology and nephrology\u201d, &nbsp;a majority of the users of oncology services\nare women. However, there are large gender gaps in the use of cardiology and\nnephrology-related services.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>The overall\nmessage from the analysis of initial PM-JAY data is that the scheme seems to be\non the right track, even though more effort is needed to achieve total gender\nparity.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Way\nForward:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Monitoring\nthe service utilization pattern: <\/strong>Timely monitoring the\ndisaggregated service utilisation data will help sensitise implementing\nagencies and district authorities about possible gender gaps.<\/li><li><strong>IEC\nCampaign: <\/strong>Gender\nGaps can be addressed by more informed and gender-sensitive planning, including\ntargeted IEC (information, education and communication) campaigns.<\/li><li><strong>Awareness\ncampaign:<\/strong>\nWomen might need to be informed about their eligibility for the scheme so that\nthey can get their e-cards made and seek treatment in time.&nbsp;<\/li><li><strong>Women\nHealthcare providers: <\/strong>Tele-consultations with women healthcare\nproviders might be required in case there are cultural barriers in consulting\nwith male doctors.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>PMJAY has a\nstrong potential to empower women to take decisions on their health and wipe\nout the gender gap in use of health services. The scheme will be successful\nonly when it can ensure that women and girls receive their due in the use of\nhealthcare services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Source:\n<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/more-equal-care-ayushman-bharat-pm-jay-6162539\/\">https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/opinion\/columns\/more-equal-care-ayushman-bharat-pm-jay-6162539\/<\/a><strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Context: Ayushman Bharat Scheme and Gender gap in healthcare services. Global gender gap report: It is published annually by the world economic forum since 2006 as a framework for capturing the magnitude of gender-based disparities and tracking their progress over time. Global gender gap index is a part of this which measures gender equality across&nbsp;four&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/7-pm-more-equal-care-gender-gap-in-healthcare-services-12th-december-2019\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">7 PM | More equal care: Gender gap in Healthcare services| 12th December 2019<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[130,955,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7-pm","category-7-pm-brief-infograph","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1700032289},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54224"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54224\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}