The administration in the country must look after the needs of children. The children of any country will constitute the next generation which will impact not only their lives as adult citizens of India but also the country’s economy, the administration of the Government that they may comprise, the generation after them, and so on. It hence becomes vital to look after their needs. The needs of children also include their medical conditions. Several schemes have been set up in India that look after the healthcare needs of the citizens, and a scheme that focuses primarily on the medical needs of children is Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme). The scheme through the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram benefits ensures that children’s overall quality of life is looked after and that they are provided with the necessary comprehensive healthcare.

Benefits Through The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK Scheme)

Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram Scheme - RBSK Scheme

Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram will allow a person to receive adequate and good quality medical services for their child throughout the territory of India, serving as a relief to those who have been struggling to pay for expensive and medically demanding health treatments for their child in a general sense as well as those who have been struggling to pay for medical treatments in general. Due to the rising costs of medical treatments and procedures, covering costs for children in the family has become difficult. Children fall ill a lot and are also more susceptible many times when it comes to infectious diseases. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Communicable diseases are those kinds of illnesses that may be transferred from one person to another or even from an animal to a person or through a medium such as a particular surface or even some specific food. Diseases can be transmitted through direct contact with a sick person during air travel. Respiratory droplets spread from a sick person sneezing or coughing. The medical services aimed at children through the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) scheme are free. This helps reduce the spending of the families, which may be incurred when a child goes through different kinds of medical treatment or treatments. The medical services may be offered in private or empanelled hospitals that have entered MoU with the States governments to provide treatment for conditions like cardiac cases and congenital defects treatments, ensuring timely care to children. The costs of these treatments are generally very high, so the fact that these costs will all be covered through the scheme for the treatment of a child will serve as a boon to parents, especially those who may come from struggling classes.

Eligibility For Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme)

Concerning the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram eligibility, it is vital to understand the age groups covered through the scheme and what conditions are necessary besides the age to take up the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram benefits. The different kinds of medical services offered through the RBSK scheme aim to cover children who fall within the range of 0 up to 6 years of age in rural areas. The scheme also seeks to protect the children who have enrolled in classes I to XII in Government and those schools that may receive Government aid.

Through the RSBK scheme, screening of children with different kinds of medical complications is carried out to identify if they would be eligible to take up any Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram benefits. Four Ds are observed from birth until the child reaches adulthood – Defects at birth, Diseases, Deficiencies, and Development delays, spanning 32 common health conditions for early detection and accessible treatment and management, including surgeries at the tertiary level.

Different Stages Of Screening Through The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme)

The children have different screening stages when it comes to the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme). The first screening level is carried out at all the necessary delivery points. The needed screening at this level happens through the different Medical Officers, Staff Nurses, and ANMs. After 48 hours till 6 weeks of age, the newborns are screened by ASHA at home as a part of the HBNC package. Outreach screening at specified mobile health teams of children of 6 weeks to 6 years is done at Anganwadi Centres and 6-18 years children at School. Once the child has been adequately screened and referred from any of the designated points of identification, it is ensured that the necessary treatment/intervention is delivered free of cost.

Referred & Treated Cases And The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RSBK Scheme)

Different children may have different medical needs. For the RBSK scheme, District Early Intervention Centres have been set up that offer different kinds of medical services for developmentally supportive care to the children that take up the benefits of the scheme. These District Early Intervention Centres are operational at the district level, so there may be some follow-up management of referred and treated cases. If surgical management is required, these units also link these children with tertiary-level health services. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is contributing towards this further by sponsoring different kinds of medical equipment. This medical equipment may comprise various types of medical tools, such as hearing aids/implants for the identified children who have disabilities.

Composition Of The Mobile Health Team For The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK Scheme)

The mobile health team for the RSBK scheme comprises different kinds of members. It is essential to know who these members are, what their background is, and what services they will offer, as it will be easier for the beneficiaries of the scheme to understand if they can resolve their medical condition or if they will need a different kind of treatment or scheme to overcome some medical condition that their child is suffering from. The Mobile Health Team for the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) consists of four members- two Doctors (MBBS/BDS/AYUSH), one male and one female, at least with a bachelor’s degree from an approved institution, one ANM/Staff Nurse and one Pharmacist/paramedical with proficiency in the computer for data management.
Mobility support through the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme)

One may be interested in the kind of mobility support available through the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) scheme. The teams may be allowed a taxi permit when it comes to supporting for being able to move around. There is a provision of one taxi permit vehicle for each team to visit the particular identified center as per the micro plan of the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram scheme. Ease of Mobility will assist not only the team that is working to provide services through the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) but also the persons that are receiving the different types of benefits and medical treatment through the scheme because they will be able to attain the services through the scheme with much more ease due to the ease of movement.

History Of The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK Scheme)

When learning about the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RSBK scheme) scheme, it is crucial to address the scheme’s history to fully understand what the scheme envelops and how it has unfolded since its inception. Launched in the year 2013, the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) was primarily focused on screening and managing different kinds of congenital disabilities in the children who receive Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram benefits, various types of deficiencies in children which is very important in India as several children in the country do not get enough food or proper nutrition and are lacking in many ways. The RBSK scheme also covered various types of diseases and shortfalls in development, including disabilities in Indian children, with the assistance of designated mobile health teams and grassroots workers who are spread across the country.

Why Is Universal Healthcare Essential?

When we observe the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram eligibility, we may notice that children are given importance as a separate group through the scheme. Universal healthcare is crucial for the steady as well as positive development of a country. Providing good quality healthcare to the citizens of a country, particularly children who will comprise the next generation in India, the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) plays a vital role in being a mechanism of ensuring that the future of the country is fostered. The World Health Organization defines universal healthcare as a situation wherein all people have access to the range of good quality medical assistance they may require, when and where they need them, and without financial hardship. Ensuring universal healthcare for all within the country ensures that the population’s basic needs are met to a greater extent. It assures the country’s citizens that if they ever have any medical issues, they can deal with it, whether directly through their out-of-pocket expenses or the benefits from different schemes such as the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) scheme. For parents of children who are suffering from diseases that require costly treatments or people whose financial situation is not good enough to meet the healthcare needs of their family, which includes their children, the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK scheme) may be a boon and reduce their struggle to some extent at the very least by covering their medical costs.

How Many Children Attain The Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram Benefits At A National Level?

A lot of people benefit from Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram eligibility. The scheme offers essential benefits that will assist in improving children’s healthcare services. The RBSK scheme covers a considerable amount of children throughout the territory of India. Many children are financially assisted through their medical treatments. Roughly 270 million children were expected to be covered across the country by rolling out the scheme to them in a phased manner and to date (since 2014) through the RBSK scheme. We have reached around 800 million children through 11,200 health teams dispersed across the country that are mobile in nature and operate from the sub-district level.

India has been said to be on track to be the most populous country in the world, especially after the population of China was observed to have stagnated to a great extent in recent years. Observing the size of the country, the RSBK scheme, which targets people throughout its territory, is a huge logistical feat. While providing healthcare to so many children throughout the country seems like a mammoth task, the successful provision of the scheme to the masses is still possible through the systematic approach RBSK envisages. It would yield rich dividends which assist in protecting and promoting children’s health in India. The intention of the RBSK scheme and the administration setting this scheme up within the country seems right and has stayed positive and virtuous, which ultimately displays the efforts and success of such a substantial logistic feat through the various Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram benefits.

Conclusion

Children may have different needs than their parents when it comes to medical treatments and medical conditions. There is a need for a separate scheme that only focuses on children and ensures that they are taken care of by the medical system in the country is pivotal to both the children, their families, and the positive development of the nation. We must not live by the notion that children do not have medical needs because they do. Most children lack the facilities to take care of themselves, whether in a monetary or a medical sense and understand how to address their healthcare needs adequately. The scheme ensures that children are given importance and their health is valued. These needs of children are the needs of the future. The better we can serve them through schemes such as the RBSK scheme, the better our outlook on the future will look because today’s children are the future citizens of our country tomorrow.

While the government is aiming to provide medical help, their help might not be enough financially. In such cases, one can raise funds for their needs on a fundraising website like Impact Guru, which helps raise money for medical and other needs.