Why in news?

• India’s Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs) programme is undergoing its biggest ever expansion of services.

What’s in today’s article?

• Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs)
• News Summary

Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs)

• Background
  • Ayushman Bharat (AB) was launched to deliver comprehensive range of services spanning preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative care.
  • It has two components which are complementary to each other.
    • Under its first component, 1,50,000 Health & Wellness Centres (HWCs) is created.
    • The second component is the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY).
      • It provides health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakhs per year to over 10 crore poor and vulnerable families for seeking secondary and tertiary care.
• About AB-HWCs
  • Started in 2018, AB-HWCs aims to deliver Comprehensive Primary Health Care, that is universal and free to users.
  • It focuses on wellness and the delivery of an expanded range of services closer to the community.
  • These centres deliver a range of comprehensive health care services like maternal and child health, services to address communicable and non-communicable diseases and services for elderly and palliative care.
  • AB-HWCs provide free essential medicines and diagnostic services, teleconsultation, and health promotion including wellness activities like Yoga.
• Target
  • 1,50,000 Sub Health Centres(SHC), Primary Health Centres (PHC) and Urban Primary Health Centres (UPHC) to be transformed as Health Wellness Centres by
    • As of 8 July 2023, there are 1,60,074 functional HWCs in India.
    • As on June 30, 2023, more than 2.16 crores wellness sessions have been conducted with participation of 23.83 crores individuals
• Key Components
  • The delivery of comprehensive primary health carethrough HWCs involve is complex task as it requires a paradigm shift at all levels of health systems.
  • 

News Summary: Centre adding more services to Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres

Key highlights:

• Addition of services
  • Under the latest expansion spree, the Central government is adding services, including:
    • screening, prevention, control & management of non-communicable diseases,
    • care for common ophthalmic & ENT problems,
    • basic oral health care,
    • elderly and palliative health care services,
    • emergency medical services, and
    • screening and management of mental health ailments.
• The essential list of medicines and diagnostics has been expanded
• The essential list of medicines and diagnostics has been expanded to make available 171 medicines at Primary HWCs and 105 at Secondary Health Care-HWC and 63 diagnostics at PHC-HWC and 14 at SHC-HWC.
• New cadre of Community Health Officers
  • A new cadre of Community Health Officers, 1.29 lakh in position, has been introduced at the level of SHC-HWC.
  • They will act as clinicians as well as public health managers.They will lead the team of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHA), Anganwadi Workers (AWW) and Auxiliary Nurse Midwifes (ANM).