Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
1) Instead of surveillance technologies there is a need to rescue TB patients by providing rights-based interventions. Analyze.(250 words)
Why this question
India has the highest burden of TB patients in the world despite the fact that TB is a completely curable disease. The disease inflicts heavy economic and health costs on the poor patients. In this context it is important to analyze why there is a need for a rights based interventions to rescue TB patients.
Directive word
Analyze-here we have to examine methodically the structure or nature of the topic by separating it into component parts, and present them as a whole in a summary.
Key demand of the question.
The question wants us to delve deep into the TB disease burden in India, bring out the inefficiencies of the surveillance based strategies in tackling the disease and discuss how a rights based approach would be the right approach in this direction.
Structure of the answer
Introduction– write a few introductory lines about the United Nations Declaration of September 2018 titled “United to End Tuberculosis: An Urgent Global Response to a Global Epidemic”, where heads of state and government have “reaffirmed their commitment to end the global TB epidemic by 2030”.
Body-
- Bring out the limitations of the surveillance based approaches and technologies in handling the disease. E.g There are also seemingly endless technological tweaks to the Directly Observed Treatment, short course (DOTS) strategy, which requires patients to report every day to a health authority, who watches them swallow their tablets. Now, governments use, or plan to soon use, a strategy of video, tablets, phones and drones to carry the old DOTS strategy into the technology era; This thinking envisions a TB response that is not with and for people who have TB but rather against suspects who must be targeted, tracked, traced and, above all, never trusted etc.
- Discuss the advantages/ need for a rights based approach in this direction. E.g Such an approach focuses on creating health systems that foster trust, partnership and dignity. This approach regards people with TB not as subjects to be controlled but as people to be partnered with. It assumes that people with TB have dignity, intelligence and empathy that motivate them to act in the best interests of themselves and their communities when empowered to do so. We cannot beat TB through a response rooted in control and coercion etc.
Conclusion– based on your discussion, form a fair and a balanced conclusion on the given issue.
