However, India has made significant progress in various parameters and more importantly in population control measures in recent times. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR), an average number of children per woman, has decreased from 2.2 to 2 at the national level.
According to the National Family Health Survey-5, there are only five states in India: Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26) Manipur (2, 17), which have a fertility level higher than replacement. from 2.1.
Uma Kumar, Professor and Head of Department of Rheumatology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, said that the current healthcare indicators are a clear testimony that we have made significant achievements across all parameters in the past 75 years.
Advertisement
But, he continued, with lifestyle changes, increased urbanization, and increased life expectancy, the nation’s disease landscape has changed rapidly.
“The prevalence of non-communicable diseases is increasing. However, we have controlled infections like polio, leprosy and others to a large extent,” Kumar told IANS.
Speaking of non-communicable diseases such as heart attack, hypertension, diabetes and autoimmune diseases, he said that there is a need to do significant work in these fields.
The government has done a commendable job in increasing the number of medical institutions, but attention now needs to be paid to quality education, such as improving the teacher-student ratio, he added.
In the National Family Health Survey 5 (NFHS-5), conducted in about 6.37 lakh sample households from 707 districts in 28 states and eight UTs covering 7,24,115 women and 1,01,839 men, it was found an overall improvement in the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in all states/UTs.
The extent to which married women tend to participate in household decisions indicates that their participation in decision making is high. It is found that the rural (77 percent) and urban (81 percent) difference is marginal.
Speaking about the rural-urban divide from the perspective of health care in the post-Independence era, Tarun Kumar, a professor of cardiology at RML Hospital, said the early days were met with health problems related to infections and environmental diseases. , but the situation has now changed. .
As development begins to accelerate, villages begin to shrink, transportation systems advance, convenience stores are replaced by shopping malls, and consequently the spectrum of diseases is undergoing a paradigm shift as well, Kumar said.
As the incidence of vector-borne diseases began to decline, there was a sharp increase in lifestyle-related diseases, he said.
“Over time, there has been an increase in hypertension, diabetes mellitus, obesity and heart disease. Now it is necessary to focus on lifestyle-related diseases, because with increasing urbanization, more and more people are becoming victims of such diseases,” Kumar said. he said.
India has also recorded a substantial increase in institutional deliveries from 79% to 89%. Even in rural areas, about 87 percent of births take place in institutions and the same is true for 94 percent in urban areas.
Archna Dhawan Bajaj, a fertility expert, said women often died during pregnancy due to a hypertensive disorder in the absence of proper medical infrastructure.
There is a large urban-rural gap in the country, and urban women have more access to health resources compared to their rural counterparts, he added.
In the post-independence era, raising the minimum age of marriage has also helped improve women’s health.
“The easy accessibility to medical resources due to the digitization of the healthcare ecosystem has also contributed to lowering the mortality rate. However, cancer among women, such as breast cancer, ovarian cancer, breast cancer, cervix and other forms, continue to be more common where the government needs work,” Bajaj said.
Source: IANS
