Description

Improvement in the health and nutritional status of the population has been one of the major thrust areas for the Social Development programmes of the country. This has to be achieved through improving the access to and utilization of Health Family Welfare and Nutrition services with special focus on under- served and under privileged segments of the population.

Over the last five decades, India has built up a vast health infrastructure and manpower at Primary, Secondary and Tertiary care in Government, Voluntary and Private sectors. These institutions are manned by Professionals and Para-professionals trained in the Medical colleges in Modern Medicine and Indian System of Medicine & Homeopathy and paraprofessional training institutions82.

The Population has become aware of the benefits of health related technologies for prevention, early diagnosis and effective treatment for a wide variety of illnesses and accessed available services. Technological advances and improvement in access to health care technologies, which were relatively inexpensive and easy to implement, had resulted in substantial improvement in health indices of the population and a steep decline in mortality.