An Assessment of Primary Healthcare Policies in India with Special Reference to Mohalla Clinics in Delhi and School Health Programme in Andhra Pradesh

Abstract

This thesis advocates the importance of primary healthcare in India. For the same, two critical newlinepolicy frameworks of delivering primary healthcare are reviewed in this thesis. Primary healthcare newlinecan be further divided into preventive and curative primary healthcare. The first policy studied in newlinethis thesis is an example of preventive primary healthcare. The conceptual framework of health newlinescreening has been studied through the central policy of Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram in the newlinestate of Andhra Pradesh. This analysis is conducted using the secondary data of children from the newlineyoung lives study and uses the methodology of Differences-in-Difference to understand the impact newlineof health screening intervention on nutritional indicators, health expenditure and cognitive newlineindicators of school children. Most of the effects were found to be statistically significant only in newlinethe short run i.e. when the post treatment year is 2013 alone such as z score for height for age, newlineexpenditure on medical consultations and treatment. It is only the cognition indicator that has a long newlineterm effect of the screening program. The intervention was introduced in 2010 and the expected newlineeffect on height and health expenditure outcomes persisted till 2013 and vanished in 2016. This newlinecould possibly be attributed to inconsistent rounds of the intervention. The second policy studied in newlinethe thesis is based on the concept of neighbourhood clinics. It is believed that bring clinics close to newlinethe people will ease down the barriers to access to healthcare. The state programme of mohalla newlineclinics in Delhi has been chosen as an example of the same and it forms an example of curative newlineprimary healthcare. Both secondary and primary data has been used to conduct this analysis. newlineMultiple RTIs were filed to get the secondary data maintained by the state health administration for newlinethis analysis. A primary individual level survey was also conducted in the West district of Delhi to newlinebuild the primary dataset for the analysis. The specific issue of overcrowding of hospita