This conversation explores the many dimensions of public health decision making with respect to the recently announced national programme for HPV vaccination for all girls at the age of 14.
Prof. T. Sundararaman
As the population ages and almost every household has persons requiring daily medication for chronic illness, the rising price of medicines has become one of the biggest financial burdens for the majority of the population. In this conversation we examine and reflect on the existing policy framework with regard to providing affordable access to medicines.. and what govts need to do better, much better.
To no one’s surprise India did not achieve its own targets for ending tuberculosis by year 2025. But did such an aspirational target even help accelerate progress? In this conversation a sober review of the modest pace of progress highlights the need to re-think many of the strategies deployed. While technology may help, there is no short-cut to the core principles of tuberculosis control- action on social determinants and better, less selective and more comprehensive primary health care.
The right to education is under threat as government schools face problems due to under-funding, poor morale and passive privatisation. However as we see from this conversation there is much that civil society can do to resist and reverse these trends. The experience of the Save School Education Movement in Tamil Nadu ( called the PKPI) has important lessons for those working to strengthen public health services and indeed all public services.
Public Health Acts enforced by a cadre of public health officers , are one of the more effective approaches to addressing the social determinants of health and ensuring the Right-to -Health, as different from only the right-to health care. Surprising then that there has been so little reviews or research or conversation in either civil society, academics or public administration on this invaluable long-standing experience of the Tamil Nadu Public Health Act. And this is worrying because this remarkable institution is in danger of getting undermined and lost even before its immense value to society is recognised. In this 27th conversation of our series we take you through an understanding of what we know of this law, the great potential it has, its weaknesses and the threats it is facing.
The number of Indian students going abroad to complete medical studies and then returning to India has now become a flood. Almost one in three of Indias medical graduates are FMGs- foreign medical graduates! About 27,000 every year! But few know of the full story of the tortuous journey they undertake and the uncertain future they face. Why is this so? For both protecting their interests and that of public health; policy makers need to act!!
Despite the many declarations of elimination, leprosy persists as a significant public health problem whose contribution to suffering and disability is seriously underestimated . In this conversation, three public health practitioners with decades of engagement with leprosy control at both field and policy levels and who are still engaged with its management on a day to day basis, reflect on why active transmission of the disease persists; why disabilities continue to emerge even after cure and on the options for the way forward —beyond the rhetoric of elimination.
India’s incidence of breast cancer may be less than in developed countries, but its mortality is much more. In adult women of the 30 to 69 age group, this is now one of the top two or three causes of mortality. The introduction in 2017, of universal screening for breast cancer as part of public provision of comprehensive primary health care was a huge and highly welcome step forward. Eight years later, we take stock of where we have reached in implementing this policy and the challenges being faced, and why our understanding of primary health care needs to go far beyond what we offer as primary level health services.
After arduous and prolonged negotiations, a global Pandemic Agreement has finally been adopted at the 78th World Health Assembly. But is this Agreement good enough to avert another pandemic catastrophe? In this conversation we invite Prof. Biswajit Dhar, to help us understand the public health implications of the Agreement in the context of the non-participation of the USA, the weaponisation of tariffs and a changing global economic order. And on what developing countries need to do further…