Center to launch Urban Health Mission soon: Anbumani

Bangalore, Feb 22 (UNI) The UPA Government will soon launch 'Urban Health Mission' to provide health cover for over 5.5 crore people in about 450 towns and cities across the country, Union minister for Health and Family welfare Anbumani Ramadoss said today.

Delivering a presidential address at the 12th Convocation of the National Institute of Mental and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) here, he said after taking consideration of the success of the Rural Health Mission (RHM) the Center has planned to start Urban Health Mission in the selected towns and cities.

The minister informed that under the UHM, over Rs 8000 crore would be spent in four years and this programme would complement RHM and "both will be synerzised", he said.

Elaborating further on the RHM, the minister said initially about 450 cities and towns the programme will be implemented targetting mainly the slums areas. "As many as 5.5 crore people will be covered in an approximate total population of over 22 crore in these urban areas," he said.

Under the scheme health workers would be called Urban Social Health Activist (USHA), like Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) in rural areas. For every 2000 population there would be a health worker and one Urban Health Center for every 50,000 population. PHCs would have doctors, para medical staff and other related infrastructure to treat the patients.

He said under UHM it was also envisaged to form a Mahila Arogya Samithis (MAS) for every 100 house holds. Each MAS would be sanctioned a Rs 2500 as seed money. The samithis would take care of health needs of each unit including motivating urban poor to go for health insurance scheme and other related issues. The MAS would act as Self Help Groups, which take care of healthcare needs of the group members, he said.

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