Pingali Venkayya

Why in the News?

On the International Day of Indigenous Peoples, a national tribal health mission might pave the way for a peaceful health revolution for India’s tribal people.

Key Points:

• Tribal Population: As per the Census of India (2011) 11 crore tribal people (enumerated as Scheduled Tribes (ST) live in India. 
  • They constitute 8.6% of India’s population.

Issues with the Tribal Population:

• Malnutrition: Child malnutrition is 50% higher in tribal children.
• Poor Public Health care institutions: Tribal people heavily depend on government-run public healthcare institutions.
  • There is a 27% to 40% deficit in the number of such facilities and 33% to 84% deficit in medical doctors in tribal areas.
• Low Participation: There is hardly any participation of the tribal people – locally or at the State or national level – in designing, planning or delivering health care to them.
• Lack of data: there is no separate data on tribal people’s health, or healthcare or on the money spent.
• Half of India’s tribal population live outside the Scheduled Areas, as a scattered and marginalised minority. 
• Malaria and tuberculosis are three to 11 times more common among the tribal people.
  • half of the total malaria deaths in India occur among them.
• Hypertension and diabetes, mental health problems such as depression and addiction leading to cancer and suicide, are increasing.

A Road Map:

• Launch a National Tribal Health Action Plan with a goal to bring the status of health and healthcare at par with the respective State averages in the next 10 years. 
• Address the priority health problems, the health care gap, the human resource gap and the governance problems. 
• Allocation of additional money so that the per capita government health expenditure on tribal people becomes equal to the stated goal of the National Health Policy (2017), i.e. 2.5% of the per capita GDP.

Conclusion: 

• The tribal healthcare system is sick, and tribal people need more substantive solutions. 
• There is a need to move from symbolic gestures to substantive promises
• The Tribal Health Mission can be the path to a peaceful health revolution for the 11 crore tribal people.