Pradhan Mantri Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana: What Is It All About?

According to the Prime Minister's Office, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Uttar Pradesh and inaugurate the Pradhan Mantri Aatmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY) in Varanasi (PMO). "The Prime Minister Aatmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY) would be one of the country's major pan-India schemes for developing healthcare infrastructure.

In addition to the National Health Mission, this will be a new scheme "said the PMO

PMASBY's objective

PMASBY's objective is to close major gaps in public health infrastructure, particularly in critical care institutions and primary care in both urban and rural locations. It will provide fund for 17,788 rural health and wellness centres in ten high-priority states. In addition, 11,024 urban health and wellness centres will be constructed across all the states.

Through specialized critical care hospital blocks, critical care services would be available in all districts of the country with a population of more than 5 lakh, while the remaining districts will be served through referral services.

Relevance of PMASBY

People will have access to a comprehensive spectrum of diagnostic services in the public healthcare system via a nationwide network of laboratories. In each district, integrated public health labs will be established.

PMASBY will establish a National Institution for One Health, four new national institutes of virology, a Regional Research Platform for the WHO South-East Asia Region, nine biosafety level III laboratories and five new regional national centres of disease control.

PMASBY's Aim

The PMASBY aims to construct an IT-enabled disease monitoring system in metropolitan regions by establishing a network of surveillance laboratories at the block, district, regional, and national levels. To connect all public health labs, the Integrated Health Information Portal will be expanded to all states and union territories.

PMASBY also seeks to operationalize 17 new public health units and reinforce 33 existing public health units at points of entry in order to identify, investigate, prevent, and combat public health emergencies and disease outbreaks more efficiently. It will also seek to develop a skilled frontline health workforce capable of responding to any public health emergency.

The scheme also intends to expand the availability of health professionals, rectify the existing geographical imbalance in the distribution of medical colleges, and make better use of the district hospitals' existing infrastructure.