I am grateful to Hon AltPM Vidyut for giving me the responsibility of heading the Ministry of Health. I will do my utmost to ensure a government-wide understanding that health is not something we do to people; it is something every Indian desires, and should enjoy as a right under Article 21.
As in the game of cricket, which we believe should be the national religion given number of adherents and ability to unite everyone, thereby improving social well-being, this is the stance of the Ministry:
We commit to ensuring universal health – not merely absence of disease but complete physical, mental and social well-being, not just for those who can afford to pay in urban centres, or those with privileges of caste and religion.
We will do this by ensuring that we have a comprehensive basket of prevention and treatment services that are age appropriate and basic to the enjoyment of health.
Headline policies:
1. Reproductive health planning services will be made freely available to all women as men can’t be relied to think or act in their own, or their partner’s, best interests. We also believe that men are responsible for every addition to the national population, and for every instance of women being at risk of injury.
2. Dental and oral health will be a national priority as foul mouths are a major public health and moral hazard.
3. Mental health support services will be available for children, adults and the elderly, both as a life saving strategy and to counter foul mouth disease – guided by the understanding that what is in the subconscious is what comes out in speech.
4. No one will lack for a free, high quality emergency response, irrespective of the cause of emergency – medical, surgical, mental or social – more likely in these days of suicidal cattle.
5. Medical education and training will be revamped to ensure we have healthcare workers who treat human beings and not organ systems, or even less.
6. Age appropriate basic interventions that enhance health will be free:
Cataract surgery, Diabetes Care, and Palliative support for the elderly, such that younger people aren’t paying EMI’s on their house as well as EMI’s for their parents healthcare costs.
In addition to delivering full complement of immunisations, Nutrition, growth and cognitive monitoring for every child, so that they are ready to start, and complete, school with questioning minds.
Every adolescent gets access to counsel for securing sexual & mental health, to prevent and address misconceptions of many kinds.
Outside of the basic package outlined above, which will be fully paid for by taxpayer money, and to which more additions will be made, aspirational medical services like nose jobs, hair transplants etc will need to be paid for out of pocket of those getting them, and providers will also need to pay to a common health fund for diverting their skills to non life saving enterprises.
We will work with every part of the government, so that their actions do not destabilise the Health of the people, especially the departments of homeopathy and such. Where appropriate, we will use the insights from Ayurveda to create new therapeutic products, but will defer to the Animal Husbandry and Renewable energy Departments in all bovine related matters, their refuse and its use for greater good.
Above all, we will work with the Ministry of Justice – to ensure that every instance of deprivation of being in a state of health and productivity is addressed – on the streets, in schools and universities, inside bedrooms, at workplaces and even inside medical care delivery institutions.