Corona War, National Lockdown and Public Health: A Wake-up Call for India
In an unprecedented move, the Prime Minister Modiji has announced a 21-day 'National Lockdown' under DM Act, 2005 from the midnight of 24 March to 14 April in Corona War as it has now become the only alternative to arrest 'community spreading' of coronavirus. From epidemic phase, Corona-infection has now metamorphosed into pandemic phase and India is now exposed to pandemic coronavirus.
Although the "Janata Curfew" on Sunday 22 March was observed by us voluntarily on Modiji's clarion call, but a section of our society couldn't probably presume the gravity of the situation and defied the partial lockdown thereafter. That is why the PM Modiji had to announce the toughest decision on 24 March at his 8 pm televised address to impose 'National Lockdown' for 21 days to break the chain of coronavirus and urged all Indians to stay home by observing 'social distancing' meaning actually physical distancing.
The PM Modiji has also announced an emergency allocation of Rs 15000 Crores to fight corona pandemic in collaboration with all States and UT administrations. Different states have also been taking various measures- both infrastructural and financial to tackle corona threats by providing cash benefits to poor people and streamling the public distribution system (PDS) to provide essential goods and services.
In this context, public health and hygiene systems have assumed the most important issue in India so that we can prevent 'community spreading' of coronavirus. Covid-19 has been the most infectious virus till date with no vaccine to prevent it and in India the infection stage has been in the most critical stage, needing prevention of community spreading to save ourselves from imminent devastation as prophesied by medical specialists.
As per the Constitutional provisions, public health and hygiene, and hospitals and dispensaries have been in the State List. So the GoI has to combat the corona threat collectively with all states through a technologically enabled network. It is undeniable that the public healthcare system in India is not so developed to combat coronavirus with so limited health resources. Then, to prevent this pandemic coronavirus we need to transform and streamline the existing healthcare system into a co-operative healthcare system on the basis of cooperative federalism.
From the health sub-centres at the lowest level to primary health centres, community health centres, sub-district hospitals, district hospitals, medical colleges and special medical research centres - all have to be integrated immediately along with all private healthcare service providers.
In a populous country like India, 'preventive' public healthcare must not be considered separately from the conventional 'curative' healthcare system but to be integrated with larger issues of food security, food safety, malnutrition, physical health infrastructure, adequately trained health workers, quality generic drugs and above all, campaigning of good public health and hygiene practices.
The GoI has already published the National Health Policy, 2017. This policy has to be revised after the subsidence of the present Corona challenge. Different health and hygiene related programmes of GoI like 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan', 'Ayushman Bharat', 'Pradhan Mantri Jana Oushadhi' etc would fetch the desirable effects if the Centre and the states do take collective steps.
To build a 'Unified Health System (UHS)', it is necessary to amend our Constitution to take the subject of public health and other related areas in the Concurrent List. And, to implement public health and care policies we need to allocate at least 3 percent of the total GDP of India by the Centre and the states jointly.
From a constitutional as well as collective perspective, citizenship is unitary in India. So, every citizen has a fundamental right to food, cloth, housing, health and education to be provided by the State of India, irrespective of the Central or state governments. No citizen can be denied of these rights due to jurisdictional conflicts between the Center and the states. Of course, the seamless delivery of healthcare has to be ensured by integrating local government mechanisms.
Lastly, social collective awareness. No measure and step can be effective and successful without voluntary and spontaneous participation of citizens. "Janata Curfew" or voluntary confinement of people in home has now been converted into compulsory confinement of people in home by national lockdown due to national exigencies.
It is a wake-up call for India. We have to face and combat the corona-war squarely, because our future is in our hand!
@ Sujit Roy
24.03.2020
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