The newly issued Annual Report of 2024-25 from the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare provides everyone with good news: Jammu and Kashmir has achieved an exciting success in India’s success story on public health transformation.
The region is improving in health areas: child health, gender equity, infrastructure development, and policy implementation, the area highlights progress. The most encouraging change is within child health indicators.
Report cites a decline in infant mortality and under five mortality rates which coincides with national priorities in the National Health Mission (NHM). Reasonable health indicators improved with vaccination/immunization coverage increased, antenatal care improved, and nutrition programs improved.
The other important improvement and recent expansion of Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK) and Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) health care programs have supported improved institutional delivery and safe childhood experience that will contribute to stronger foundation in health care.
Gender gaps have also ameliorated in J&K with access to health care facilities for women improving. Women were supported in these care facilities with more institutional deliveries, family planning services available, and continued health service access through Ayushman Bharat-Health and Wellness Centres (AB-HWCs).
It refers to the region’s long-term commitment to gender-just development through maternal health and adolescent health programs.
Another noteworthy element in J&K has been the infrastructure development. Some weeks, it’s new hospitals, other weeks its upgradation of primary health facilities, all with telemedicine services, extending quality health care into the deepest and lone valleys. A particularly strong contributor has been e-Sanjeevani teleconsultation, as it connects patients in distant areas with specialists, decreasing the urban-rural gap inequity of care.
It also attends to improved regulation in J&K, which has engaged improved promotion, monitoring, and analysis of drug standardization, which includes improved quality assurance in care facilities. After rigorous monitoring of medical facilities and very crisp endeavours to eliminate malpractice, there are attempts to build public confidence in the health system.
However, all these changes can be overshadowed by a legacy of problems- easy access in rugged, hilly terrain, continued efforts to decrease maternal mortality, etc. J&K shows the possibilities in every region; targeted policy engagement, concrete investment in primary health infrastructure and involvement of communities can ultimately change the ground.
