Health Schemes for Rural Children

Under National Health Mission (NHM) the provision of health care to children particularly in rural areas is given priority attention. The details of the various interventions being implemented to improve the health of children are as below:-

1. Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakaram (JSSK): entitles all pregnant women delivering in public health institutions to absolutely free and no expense delivery including Caesarean section.  The initiative stipulates free drugs, diagnostics, blood and diet, besides free transport from home to institution, between facilities in case of a referral and drop back home. Similar entitlements have been put in place for all sick infants accessing public health institutions for treatment till one year of age.

2. Facility Based Newborn Care (FBNC) at different levels to reduce newborn morbidity and mortality by setting up of facilities for care of sick and small newborn such as Special New Born Care Units (SNCUs), Newborn Stabilization Units (NBSUs) and Newborn Care Corners (NBCCs) at different levels is a thrust area under NHM.

3. Home Based New Born Care (HBNC) through ASHAs has been initiated to improve newborn practices at the community level and early detection and referral of sick newborn babies.

4. India Newborn Action Plan (INAP) has been launched with an aim to reduce neonatal mortality and stillbirths.

5. Newer interventions to reduce newborn mortality- Vitamin K injection at birth, Antenatal corticosteroids for preterm labour, Kangaroo Mother Care and injection Gentamicin to young infants in cases of suspected sepsis have been rolled out.

6. Integrated Action Plan for Pneumonia and Diarrhoea (IAPPD) launched in four states with highest child mortality (UP, MP, Bihar and Rajasthan).

7. Management of severe acute malnutrition in children is being done at Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres (NRCs) which have been established across the country.

8. Appropriate Infant and Young Child Feeding practices are being promoted in convergence with Ministry of Woman and Child Development.

9. Village Health and Nutrition Days (VHNDs) are organized for imparting nutritional counselling to mothers and to improve child care practices.

10. 10Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) a name based Mother and Child Tracking System has been put in place which is web based to ensure registration and tracking of all pregnant women and newborn babies so that provision of regular and complete services to them can be ensured.

11. Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) for health screening and early intervention services has been launched to provide comprehensive care to all the children in the age group of 0-18 years in the community. The purpose of these services is to improve the overall quality of life of children through early detection of birth defects, diseases, deficiencies, development delays including disability.

12. Under National Iron Plus Initiative (NIPI), through life cycle approach, age and dose specific Iron & Folic Acid (IFA) supplementation programme is being implemented for the prevention of anaemia among the vulnerable age groups like under-5 children, children of 6 – 10 years of age group, adolescents, pregnant & lactating women and women in reproductive age along with treatment of anaemic children and pregnant mothers at health facilities.

13. Capacity building of health care providers through various training is being conducted under NHM to train doctors, nurses and ANMs for essential newborn care, early diagnosis and case management of common ailments of children. These trainings are on Navjaat Shishu, Suraksha Karyakram (NSSK), Integrated Management of Neonatal and Childhood Illnesses (IMNCI), Facility Based Newborn Care (FBNC), Infant and Young Child Feeding practices (IYCF), etc.

14. Universal Immunization Programme (UIP) covers about 13.5 crore children for vaccination against seven vaccine preventable diseases, through 90 lakh immunization sessions each year.

15. Mission Indradhanush, launched on 25th December, 2014, seeks to achieve 90% full immunization coverage of India by year 2020. The objective of Mission Indradhanush is to ensure high coverage of children with all vaccines in the entire country with a high focus on the 201 identified districts. It is proposed to conduct four special vaccination campaigns between March and June 2015 with intensive planning and monitoring of these campaigns covering all children up to two years of age and pregnant women for tetanus toxoid vaccine.

16. To sharpen the focus on vulnerable and marginalized populations in underserved areas, 184 High Priority Districts have been identified across the country for accelerating implementation of Reproductive Maternal Newborn Child Health+ Adolescent (RMNCH+A) interventions for achieving improved maternal and child health outcomes.

17. The State-wise details of funds allocation, release and expenditure for reproductive and child health programme under NHM for last three years are given below:-

The Health Minister, Shri J P Nadda stated this in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha here today.