Conversations on Health Policy

We know that markets do not work to assure quality health care!! But what does? Over the last 15 years, the NHM has developed the National Quality Assurance System (NQAS) to assure quality in public health services. What is NQAS? Is it working? Is it scaleable? Is it enough? This conversation between Yogesh Jain and Sundararaman, the 8th in our series, explores the answers!!

The challenge is to secure ASHAs own rights as a woman and a front line health worker, while continuing to strengthen her solidarity with the community as part of an alternative vision of an organization of health services.

Four years after the pandemic, we have learnt a lot about it. But there is a lot we do not know as well. This is a time for reminding ourselves of what we went through and learning from it- so that we can truly say– never again !!

Much of what is said in the Negotiating Text of Pandemic Agreement is necessary and welcome. But is it sufficient to ensure that we never again have to experience the social, economic, health and human rights catastrophe that we have just been through during the Covid 19 pandemic??”

This is a picture of a 18 month old girl with severe pain due to dactylitis. Needless suffering. !!. The current policy is aspirational but flawed and needs to get it’s priorities right …

A better understanding of these three concepts and the relationship between them is essential for progress towards realization of the right to healthcare. One cannot be achieved without the other…

Preparations are on for the High Level Meeting of the United Nations on Antimicrobial Resistance, scheduled for September 2024. The proposed strategies are welcome but incomplete. There is much more that a Call for Action should address…

There has been very limited comments on the media and even in academic journals on the major changes in the strategies of tuberculosis, globally and at the national level.

The need for a new act replacing the Medical Council Act is no doubt of utmost importance. Unfortunately, the National Medical Council Bill of 2019, now an Act.