Wellness wishes for 2047

GS paper 2

Syllabus: Issues related to the development of the social sector relating to health, education, SDGs etc

 

Source: Indian Express

Direction: Most of the points are generic here. Go through it once.

Context: This is an editorial piece.  The author wishes that India at 100 will be an equitable country, built on firm access to high-quality education and healthcare along with gender parity, employment opportunities for all, etc. He gives prescriptions of what should be done.

 

Improvements in schooling and skills:

• Vocational training centres: we must strengthen vocational training centres — Industrial Training Institutes, for instance — that provide skills necessary for employment.
• Reducing the number of degrees: The degrees that do not serve as a gateway to professional development or knowledge acquisition.
• Barriers to education: We must ensure that finances are not a barrier to education

 

A World Bank report: Reports from the early 2000s made the case for education of women as the major driver of change in the health status of societies.

• Factors linked to education: Reduced fertility, safer births and better health of children and increased social status are causally linked to the education of women
• Healthcare beyond maternal and child care: Healthcare must move beyond maternal and child health packages and programmes to treat diseases.
• Preventing life-threatening diseases: Enabling people to improve their health, preventing life-threatening diseases and improving palliative care for patients of such diseases.

 

The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals for 2030:  They are unlikely to be addressed in full measure by 2047 if we do not address health, health emergencies and catastrophic health expenditures.

• Although only Goal 3 of the SDGs directly focuses on good health and well-being, the other goals are also linked to health.
  • For example, Goals 1 and 2 — no poverty and zero hunger — cannot be attained if issues related to health are not addressed.

Way forward:

• Make primary healthcare truly functional, especially when it comes to preventing illness and high out-of-pocket expenses on health.
• Place healthcare providers close to patients by creating proper and functional physical and digital infrastructure.
• Create the right and rapid referral pathways, so that delays in care do not result in unnecessary burden on individuals and their families.
• Place individuals and their needs at the centre and ensure that these needs are met without large payments being required at the point of care.
• Regulate the private sector and ensure that no part of the country is a health “desert”.
• Trained and motivated personnel and inexpensive drugs and vaccines for which India is well-known.
• Equitable access requires that we deliver to all, and not just the privileged few.

 

Conclusion:

2047 may seem distant, but to create the foundation for the next century, we need to invest in education and health in the next 25 years — not just for the elite, but for all.

 

Insta Links:

India and SDGs

 

Mains Links:

Q. Besides being a moral imperative of the Welfare State, primary health structure is a necessary precondition for sustainable development.” Analyze. (UPSC 2021)

 

Prelims Links:

Link it with World Bank, Club of Rome etc.