India's Efforts For Achieving Sustainable Development Essay.

Measures for the development and maintenance of health in India

Discuss About The India For Achieving Sustainable Development?

Endeavors of India for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals in a time bound and well-defined manner is very crucial for the development of the country as well as for that of the entire world (Amin, 2015). The contribution of India’s development in the health sector would contribute to the development of the world’s overall health due to the mammoth sized population of the country and the widely ranged inequalities in the socioeconomic and demographic indicators across India (Agénor, Krieger, Austin, Haneuse & Gottlieb, 2014). The human development index of India is very much lower as compared to other countries like Russia, China, Brazil despite being listed among one of the largest evolving economies in the past years.  India has been the largest contributor to the under-five deaths on a global scale since the decades of 19070s (Amin, 2015).  

The annual count of death of under-five children in India was recorded to be as high 1.2 million in the years few past years (Country Income Groups (World Bank Classification), 2017).  This was accounted to be more than 6 times greater than the records of the largest populated country in the world, China (Denno, Hoopes & Chandra-Mouli, 2015).  India has been one of the top countries where almost seventy-five percent of the one billion people who are extremely poor live in the world (Dhana, Luchters, Moore, Lafort, Roy, Scorgie & Chersich, 2014).  The head count for poverty rate at the country level was extremely high which also accounted as to be 21.9 percent in the year 2012 (Agénor et al., 2014). This country also happens to have extensive hunger rate which ranks the country to be at the 97th position among 118 developing nations included in the Global Hunger Index (Darroch, 2016).  India is very likely to achieve the universal access to reproductive and sexual health care services by the year 2030 as the country has been taking health goals for its population very seriously which is imminent from the measures that the country is taking (Country Income Groups (World Bank Classification), 2017).

Measures for the development and maintenance of health in India relates to the ancient history of the country (Germain, Sen, Garcia-Moreno & Shankar, 2015). The country, which is the birth place of Ayurveda that is considered to be the ancient health souvenir, is taking steps regarding development and maintenance of health through various approaches of primary health care in the modern time (Grainger, Gorter, Okal & Bellows, 2014).  India happens to be a signatory to the declarations that were laid down at the ICPD which stated the objective of achieving the optimum Reproductive Health for All (Squires & Anderson, 2015). This has made India to devise and implement a lot of approaches and inputs for the development and delivery of health care along with the manual assistance in regards to the health care (Kim, Goldenberg, Duff, Nguyen Gibson & Shannon, 2015). Significant developments have been observed in the sexual and reproductive health care services which integrate the health growth in the aspects of family planning, education and information associated with health, and the integration of reproductive health into national programs and strategies (Katz, McDowell, Green, Jahan, Johnson & Chen, 2015).  It can be relevant from the fact that India has successfully obtained halting and averting HIV.  India is also close to achieving the goal of eradicating the under-five mortality rate (Denno, Hoopes & Chandra-Mouli, 2015). 

Historical factors

India has been very seriously implementing the SDG with very well devised ads systematic efforts, mostly at the local level of the country (UNFPA India, 2017).  India has inculcated the vision of “No one is to be left behind” which denotes to the fact that the country has an overarching goal for reduction of inequalities across class, gender, caste, and region (Dhana et al., 2014). It is a fact that the improvements in the health care system are not up to the desired results, however, the fact that the developments in the provision of good and enhanced overall health services cannot be denied. Moreover, a great extent of inequalities and disparities has been existing in various groups of population in the country (Squires & Anderson, 2015).

The concern and experience in the development in health and the primary care in health in India ages back to the Vedic period (Nath, 2017). The evidence of well-developed and maintained programs of environmental sanitation laid the underground drains and public baths.  “Health” or “Arogya “  was accounted as high priority aspects in the regular life and such concept included mental,  socials, spiritual and physical well-being (Darroch, 2016). 

The lifestyle was very much favorable for the promotion of health and in the daily activities of regular life called the “Dina Charya” the following necessities of health care were focused:  personal habits and hygiene, health education, dietary practices, exercise, sanitation, environmental sanitation, food, self-discipline and code of conduct (Germain et al., 2015).  The political changes such as the onslaught of sequential foreign regimes and aggression lead to the extinction of the great era of health (Nair, Baltag, Bose, Boschi-Pinto, Lambrechts, & Mathai, 2015).  India is a country where the geography is frequently affected by cyclones, floods, and earthquakes.

In such natural calamities, the health of the people, mostly the section of people belonging to the poorer sections gets affected (Pachauri, 2017). Through all such past events, the present governments of the country have been taking the health goals of the country with utmost priority and have been devising many approaches to provide enhanced health care to the people belonging poor and underprivileged sections of the country (IDR, 2017).

The cultural factors in India have played a very dominating role in the health aspects of the country, especially in the aspects of sexual and reproductive health.  The family planning has been greatly affected by the cultural aspects (Squires & Anderson, 2015). In many regions and culture, using contraceptives and condoms in regards to having proper family planning was considered as taboo in the past (Grainger et al., 2014). 

Cultural factors

In the cases of diagnosis, there has been an element of controversy even now in the under-developed regions which have poor literacy rate (UNFPA India, 2017).  Uneducated people in the country are mostly unaware of the knowledge regarding biomedicine. The government is still working to spread awareness regarding the benefits of using biomedicine (Agénor et al., 2014).

The structural factors that have the greatest influence on health issues in India are the rules, regulations, and control from the local, national, regional and institutional and international organizations (Kim et al., 2015).  Further factors that have significant implications on the issues of health include control over capital, corporations that are associated with the health industry, measures of control over the orientation of society including economic, political, cultural, ideology and social aspects (Country Income Groups (World Bank Classification), 2017).

The structural factors that relate to the law, policy, and governance contribute to the implications of the people regarding sexual and reproductive health care in the country (Denno, Hoopes & Chandra-Mouli, 2015). The political control over the structure of decision making in a country like India has effects on the education and information along with the integration of reproductive health into the program and strategies devised by the country (Katz et al., 2015).

The critical factor that possesses implications on the goal of India in achieving the universal access to reproductive and sexual health services by 2030 include the implementation of the state and national agenda which requires collective efforts and political commitment on a long-term basis by the ministries for investing in providing better sexual health to the people (Germain, Sen, Garcia-Moreno & Shankar, 2015).

The negligence of the higher authorities towards the sexual and reproductive health of the people belonging to the lower and unprivileged sections of the society similar to what the British did during their rule in the country (Nath, 2017). The resistance presented by the people of India having obsolete and traditional beliefs can prove to be detrimental to the progress of the country in achieving these health objectives (Grainger et al., 2014). The coordination of different agencies and authorities in the government has large scale dominance over the success of the health goals of India (Nair et al., 2015).

The barriers to the implementation and obtaining better sexual and reproductive health condition for the people in India would include discrimination and stigma (Kim et al., 2015).  The prejudicial attitudes of people regarding the practices and open communication with the medical professionals restrict the full-fledged execution of the approaches regarding enhancing the sexual and reproductive health of the people in the country (Katz et al., 2015). Improper management of care in the health institutions along as well as by the poor and uneducated people due to improper awareness proves to be a barrier regarding the development of health in such case (Nath, 2017).

Structural factors

Ultimately, the individuals belonging to the poor sections of the society are getting affected. Most of such issues are resulting due to the society (Nair et al., 2015). Much of these concerns and issues in the sexual and reproductive health care are constrained due to the cultural and social beliefs (Pachauri, 2017).  The funding, policies, and provision of services regarding sexual and reproductive health care are not managed in a proper way (Pachauri, 2017).

India has succeeded in its programs regarding sexual and reproductive health care which can be relevant through the implementation of the National Population Policy was formulated in the year 2000 (UNFPA India, 2017). Further, the conditional cash transfer schemes such as Janani Suraksha Yojana which was formulated for the promotion of institutional deliveries have been successful in addressing the financial barriers for the people to have access to healthcare services (IDR, 2017). The government should make enhanced efforts and approaches to provide education and awareness to the uneducated and people belonging to the poorer sections of the country (Squires & Anderson, 2015). Survey and inspection on the ground level need to be conducted as to be updated regarding the progress of the approaches (IDR, 2017).

Conclusion:

The government of India is taking multidimensional approaches to provide enhanced sexual and reproductive health care to the people along with emphasizing mental health, healthy lifestyle and favorable social environment. Empowering and involving the people in making the approaches successful is very much required for success in health care would begin from the regional level of the country.

References

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