National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) has been cleared and are to work from noon to light

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, launched National Urban Health Mission (NUHM) to effectively address the concerns of urban poor population. Under the mission the urban primary health centres provide various health facilities after working hours and will function from noon to 8 p.m. The scheme which is running parallel to National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was recently approved by the cabinet.

The Nationa Urban Health Mission will highly focus on:

• Listed and unlisted poor population of Urban slums.

• All vulnerable population such as homeless, rag-pickers, street children, rickshaw pullers, construction and brick and lime kiln workers, sex workers, and other temporary migrants.

• Public health thrives on sanitation, clean drinking water, vector control, etc.

• Strenthening public heatlh captacity of urban local bodies.

Some Important Highlights of the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM):

• It will cover all cities and towns with a population of over 50,000. Primary health centres will be set up near slums and low-income neighbourhoods.

• Reproductive and child health programmes apart, it will address communicable and non-communicable diseases, especially State-specific diseases such as sickle-cell and flourosis.

• The States will map out slums and unlisted clusters in cities and the health facilities available there in order to identify the gaps in services, and appoints a nodal officer for coordination.

• Framework for partnerships with NGOs, charitable hospitals, and other stakeholders.

• Two-tier system of risk pooling: (i) women’s Mahila Arogya Samiti to fulfil urgent hard-cash needs for treatments; (ii) a Health Insurance Scheme for enabling urban poor to meet medical treatment needs.

• NUHM would cover all cities with a population of more than 100000.