Health ministry in 2024: Ayushman Bharat scheme extended to people over 70 years, NMC dogged by controversies

New Delhi: Boosting the Ayushman Bharat health insurance scheme by extending coverage to people aged 70 and above and launching of the U-WIN portal to digitise vaccinations of pregnant women and children stood out among the key initiatives of the health ministry in 2024, a year which was free from the Covid shadow.

The R G Kar rape-murder case of West Bengal prompted the health ministry to devote considerable attention towards addressing the gaps in medical infrastructure, improving working conditions of healthcare workers and ensuring their security on hospital campuses amid demands from doctors across the country for a central law to deal with violence against healthcare professionals.

There was a change at the helm in the health ministry after the elections with Mansukh Mandaviya making way for J P Nadda who took charge for the second time. His previous stint was in the Narendra Modi government's first term (from November 9, 2014 to May 30, 2019) before he took over as the BJP's working president in 2019.

On the flip side, the National Medical Commission (NMC) remained dogged by controversies surrounding the NEET PG entrance exam, and over MBBS curriculum related guidelines that were issued, withdrawn and revised following backlash from various stakeholders.

Following alleged paper leak of NEET-UG, the Union Health Ministry postponed the NEET-PG entrance examination as a "precautionary measure" in July and undertook a thorough assessment of the robustness of the exam process. That in turn also delayed the counselling for admissions further, making the entire process a stressful experience for the students.

The NMC faced flak after it reintroduced topics such as "Sodomy and lesbianism describing these as unnatural sexual offenses, and terms like hymen and its type, its medico-legal importance besides defining virginity and defloration in the curriculum for undergraduate medical students after removing it in 2022.

Within days, it had to withdraw and later issue revised guidelines removing these topics.

In the aftermath of the R G Kar incident, the NMC also recommended that resident doctors should work no more than 74 hours per week and get a weekly one-day off. It also called for appropriate working conditions during duty hours, such as comfortable rest areas, nutritious meals etc stating excessive duty hours pose risks to the physical and mental health of medical students and also compromise patient safety.

The expansion of Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (AB PM-JAY) to include all people aged 70 and above was the year's most citizen centric scheme, broadening its ambit to include an additional 6 crore senior citizens.

The enrollment for the Ayushman Vay Vandana Cards has reached an impressive milestone of 25 lakh since its launch by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on October 29, 2024.

The nationwide roll-out of U-WIN, a digital platform which is a replication of the COVID-19 vaccine management system Co-WIN, to keep a permanent digital record of vaccination of pregnant women as well as children from birth up to the age of 17 under the Universal Immunization Programme was an important step forward for the government's health system.

In a decisive move towards eliminating tuberculosis in India towards the fag end of the year, the Union Health Ministry in collaboration with key stakeholders also launched a 100 Day TB elimination campaign to quickly detect and treat TB across 347 affected districts across the country.

It has been designed to enhance TB case detection, reduce diagnostic delays, and improve treatment outcomes, particularly in high-risk groups.

It represents yet another significant strategic effort by the country in its bid to strengthen programmatic activities and reduce disparities in TB outcomes across diverse regions of the country to achieve the aim of TB elimination.

Further, a shorter and more efficacious treatment regimen was made available for use under the National TB Elimination Programme (NTEP) to help in reducing the treatment duration from 9-12 months to 6 months.

The health ministry in consultation with the state and Union territory governments is preparing a detailed rollout plan for logistics and training of health professionals for the introduction of this new regimen early next year.

The health ministry also took a decision to instal BHISHM cubes which are portable and rapidly deployable modular medical facility to provide emergency lifesaving clinical care in event of disaster/public health emergencies in 25 AIIMS and institutes of national importance in the first phase.

India has gifted four BHISHM Cubes to Ukraine during the Prime Minister's visit to the country.

In an innovative usage of drone technology to enhance service delivery and make healthcare more accessible, drone services, which will aid in rapid, cost-effective and safe delivery of medical supplies and samples in hard-to-reach and tough terrains, were launched at 11 tertiary healthcare institutions.

These are AIIMS Rishikesh in Uttarakhand, AIIMS Bibinagar in Telangana, AIIMS Guwahati in Assam, AIIMS Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, AIIMS Jodhpur in Rajasthan, AIIMS Patna in Bihar, AIIMS Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh, AIIMS Raebareli in Uttar Pradesh, AIIMS Raipur in Chhattisgarh, AIIMS Mangalagiri in Andhra Pradesh and RIMS Imphal in Manipur.

Also, a helicopter emergency medical service from AIIMS Rishikesh, which will help deliver medical care speedily was also launched.

A National Medical Register for registration of all the MBBS doctors, who are eligible for registration in India and a portal for allied and healthcare professionals and institutes which act as a centralised database of existing healthcare professionals and institutes were also launched.

Besides, the Central Drugs Regulatory Authority waived the requirement for clinical trials of certain categories of drugs in India if they are approved in the US, UK, Japan, Australia, Canada, and European Union.

The waiver only covers five categories -- orphan drugs for rare diseases; gene and cellular therapy products; new drugs used in pandemic situations; new drugs used for special defence purposes; and new drugs having significant therapeutic advances over the current standard care.