Many Lessons from Covid-19

The Hindu     27th October 2020     Save    

Context: Covid-19 pandemic has exposed the fragility of the global health system and its gendered impact on women. India can do better in many aspects.

Impact of Pandemic

  • Gendered Impact:
  • Disruption of Medical Services: family planning and other immunisation services (up to 70%) were impacted, leading to a rise in maternal death (by 60% or more.)
      • Surge in domestic violence: A third of women experienced domestic violence, but less than 1% sought help from the police. 
  • Rising Incidence of poverty: In India, the number of women and girls living in extreme poverty is expected to increase from 87 million to 100 million. 
  • Increased rate of wasting in children (10% to 50%): due to a reduction in coverage of essential services.
  • Reduced access to nutritious food: As a huge number of children depend on school meals.

Way Forward

  • Ensure gender analysis and gender-responsive public health policies: 
  • World Health Organization (WHO) member states must collect data, report and analyse it, disaggregated by sex and include responses to violence against women as an essential service.
  • Ensure financial protection and effective coverage of health services: by reducing out-of-pocket payments For, E.g. through schemes like Ayushman Bharat
  • Out-of-pocket payments cause about 100 million to fall into extreme poverty every year, and 800 million globally spend more than 10% of their household budget on healthcare. 
  • Ensure effective health coverage index: to measure the quality of health services which looks at the provision and efficacy of services in terms of health outcomes.
  • Employ digital technology-based healthcare platforms: 
      • Telemedicine: For, E.g. Platforms like ECHO have been used in many States to train health care workers and the government’s e-Sanjeevani platform is enabling telemedicine appointments. 
  • Electronic and portable health records: as a new way of collecting, using and sharing data, enabling local, contextualised decision-making. 
  • Private collaboration in the medical sector: to improve health outcomes, productivity, apart from reducing costs and saving a lot of time for doctors. 
  • Integrate social protection systems, food systems and health systems: to expand nutrition services.
    • Ensure efficient infodemic management: through setting up of behavioural insights group to provide advice on behaviour change.
    • False or misleading information leads to harmful behaviours and mistrust in governments and the public health response. 
      • Reduce other factors impacting health: including various social and environmental determinants of health, such as quality of water and air.
      • Empower frontline health workers: by investing in them in terms of the tools they need, training, mentoring, and salary.
      • Invest in strong institutional mechanisms and capacities: in regulatory bodies, research centres and public health institutions. 
        • Promote health literacy to counter health-related fear: stigma and discrimination circulated on social media
        • Promote investment in human resources and engage and empower communities: for achieving the goal of Universal Health Coverage. 

      Conclusion: Health system must involve people it is trying to serve and have them involved in developing the services that we are bringing to them.