Editorial 1: May all be free of illness
Context:
- In 2018, The government launched the Ayushman Bharat programme in 2018 to provide comprehensive healthcare services for everyone irrespective of where they live or what their economic status.
- Ayushman Bharat shifts from segmented healthcare to a holistic, need-based approach. It covers prevention, promotion and care across primary, secondary and tertiary levels through health and wellness centres (HWCs) and the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PM-JAY).
Ayushman Bhav: To aware people about the programme
- Recently, President Droupadi Murmu launched new campaign Ayushman Bhav.
- It focuses on comprehensive coverage, developing awareness about PM-JAY, creating health account IDs, and providing health services including disease screenings and management of multiple illnesses such as tuberculosis, hypertension, sickle cell disease and diabetes in villages as well as urban wards.
- It aims to reach over 6.45 lakh villages and 2.55 lakh gram panchayats. It is designed in line with the antyodaya principle to make sure that no one is left behind in the quest for universal health coverage.
- To facilitate this, the campaign will have activities such as sewa pakhwada, which would include organ donation drives, cleanliness drives (swachhata abhiyan) and blood donation initiatives.
Three core pillars of the programme
- Strengthening the groundwork for delivery of healthcare services, this campaign broadens Ayushman Bharat’s reach using three core pillars:
- Ayushman Apke Dwar 3.0,
- Ayushman Sabha, and
- Ayushman Mela.
- These pillars enhance service delivery by focusing on comprehensive coverage, collaborative awareness-building and community-centred efforts.
- Ayushman Apke Dwar 3.0 will build on the success of its earlier versions (1.0 and 2.0) by expanding Ayushman card distribution with enhanced utilisation of Ayushman Bharat services, ensuring widespread coverage.
- The Ayushman-Apke Dwar initiative will commence with an extensive country-wide, ensuring the provision of Ayushman cards to around 60 crore beneficiaries under the PM-JAY scheme.
- Therefore, every eligible beneficiary receives their Ayushman card, leaving no one without access to affordable healthcare services.
- Ayushman Sabhas will promote awareness of various healthcare schemes and services available in the country and will be spearheaded by the village health, sanitation and nutrition committees (VHSNCs).
- Ayushman Sabhas will serve as a platform for citizens to gain knowledge about communicable and non-communicable diseases and voice their concerns about healthcare services, promoting social accountability of healthcare systems and exemplifying the principle of “jan bhagidari se jan kalyan”
- These gatherings will include activities like distributing PM-JAY cards, showcasing empanelled hospitals, creating Ayushman Bharat Health Account IDs, screening services, and organising talks to raise awareness about various diseases with participation from MPs/MLAs, PM-JAY beneficiaries, Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres beneficiaries, and tuberculosis champions and more to motivate the community
- To advance the Ayushman Bhav initiative, Ayushman Melas will serve as an efficient platform to tackle a broad spectrum of health concerns, efficiently reaching a large audience and boosting healthcare service utilisation.
- Ayushman Melas will be held every week at 1.6 lakh HWCs in villages. They will also take place at community health centres, organised by medical colleges at the block level. This will be pivotal to spreading awareness of healthcare services among vulnerable and impoverished populations
Conclusion:
- In the context of optimum healthcare delivery vision, the pursuit of comprehensive healthcare coverage has the vision for service of humanity in line with ancient wisdom found in this verse from the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: Sarve bhavantu sukhinah/Sarve santu niramayah/Sarve bhadrani pashyantu/Ma kashcid duhkha bhagbhavet (May all be happy, may all be free from illness. May all see what is auspicious, may no one suffer in any way.)
- Therefore, Ayushman Bhav is the embodiment of the same commitment to delivering healthcare. It fosters the prospects of robust health for every citizen and the nation as a whole.
Editorial 2: Is climate change causing deluge across the world
Recent Context:
- The latest series of extreme weather events took place against the backdrop of rising global temperatures.
- Therefore, it can be tempting to see the flood in different regions as a direct consequence of climate change and studies have shown that global warming is most likely affecting flooding.
Relationship between climate change and floods?
- Although it isn’t clear if climate change is inducing floods directly, scientists maintain that it’s certainly exacerbating many of the factors that do. Take heavier precipitation for instance.
- With higher temperatures, there is more evaporation from land, oceans and water bodies, which means a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture experts suggest for every 1-degree Celsius rise in average temperature, the atmosphere can hold about 7% more moisture.
- This makes storms more dangerous as it leads to an increase in precipitation intensity, duration and/or frequency, which ultimately can cause severe flooding.
- A recent study, published by the journal Nature, showed that since 2002, precipitation extremes have been closely correlated with rising temperature as a result planet has become both drier and wetter at the same time.
- “Warmer air can suck moisture out of the soil, amplifying droughts. On the flipside, warm air can also hold more moisture, meaning that it can transport more water into an already wet region,
- Rising sea levels is another example. Higher global temperatures have resulted in the melting of glaciers and ice sheets, leading to an increase in sea levels, which puts coastal regions at higher risk of flooding. According to a 2022 report by NOAA Climate, the global mean sea level has risen about 21–24 centimetres since 1880
Hard to attribute floods to climate change
- However there are limited historical records, particularly for the most catastrophic floods, which occur less frequently. Moreover, as mentioned before, there are too many factors (like local weather patterns, soil character, and topography of the affected area) at play to pick and blame for flooding in a region.
- Similarly, scientists are yet to figure out the relationship between tornadoes and climate change. This isn’t true for every extreme weather event, though. There is enough evidence to show that global warming has increased the number of hot days.
Other factors that affect flooding
- Local conditions like topography and how wet the soil is contribute to the flood development. For example, drier soils are more capable of absorbing most of the rainfall in comparison to wetter soils — however, both really dry and really wet soils can’t absorb much water.
- Weather patterns also have a significant role. A case in point is the 2022 Australian floods. Much of the eastern coast of the country was inundated due to persistent heavy rainfall.
- Deforestation: It is another ingredient in the occurrence of floods.
- Trees firmly hold soil, and their roots are known to absorb excess surface water, channelling it to underground reservoirs.
- Without many trees in an area, the natural blockage that prevents the unchecked flow of water goes away, leading to floods.
- Inadequate maintenance of infrastructure may cause floods too.
- In Libya’s port city of Derna, the severity of floods was so huge because heavy rainfall caused two of the city’s dams to burst — they collapsed under the pressure of water gathered behind them during the storm.
- Several reports have suggested that the dams may have been in a dilapidated state due to the negligence of authorities.
- Human encroachment into floodplains is one more reason for flooding, according to experts.
- Recently, A committee was set up to look into the causes for flood Yamuna region of Delhi, The committee found that the main reason behind the deluge was due to excessive encroachment.
Conclusion:
- Recent flood disaster in Libya is an eye-opening message for the global community. Therefore, collective actions need to be taken to combat the climate change while developing the disaster resilient infrastructure as per Sendai framework.