Strategies to be adopted by the hospital to achieve Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

Dr. I B Singh *

Dr. I B Singh delivering a lecture at BHU :: Pix - TSE

In September 2000( on 8th of September, 2000), representatives from 189 countries met at the Millennium Summit in New York to adopt the United Nations Millennium Declaration which included eight (8) Goals called the Millennium Development Goals (MDGS).

These summarize the key development goals embraced by the main international conferences and world summits during the 1990s, and are declarations of solidarity and determination of the world leaders to rid the world of poverty and to improve the lot of humanity.

MDGS and related targets and indicators provide a framework for planning policy interventions and benchmarks to monitor progress in human development and poverty reduction. The Road Map established goals and targets to be reached by the year 2015.

Eighteen (18) targets were set as quantitative benchmarks for attaining the 8 MDGS. The United Nations Development Group(UNDG) in its 2nd Guidance note (endorsed in 2003) on ‘Country Reporting on the Millennium Development Goals provided a framework of 53 indicators (48 basic +5 alternative) which are categorized according to targets, for measuring the progress towards individual targets. India’s MDG framework for monitoring of the 8 MDGs has out of the 18 targets, 12 targets (Target 1 to 11 and Target 18) relevant to India. Corresponding to the 12 targets, there are 35 identified indicators.

While MDG goals are general in nature, the targets under MDGs are more specific and the indicator(s) for measuring the progress of these targets are defined in concrete terms. Some of the targets are relative to base value where the 2015 target value of the indicator(s) depends on the respective 1990 estimates for the Country; some of the targets are absolute (eg. Universal primary education), while others aim at trend reversal.

The Millennium Development Goals place health at the heart of development and represent commitments by governments throughout the world to do more to reduce poverty and hunger, and to tackle ill-health and gender inequality, lack of education, access to clean water, and environmental declaration. Thus three of the eight goals are directly health related and all other goals have important indirect effect on health; three of the 8 goals , 8 of the 18 targets required to achieve these goals, and 18 of the 48 indicators of progress are health related.

The Millennium Development Goals are:-

Eight Goals for 2015

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

2. Achieve universal primary

3. Promote gender equality and empower women

4. Reduce child mortality partnership

5. Improve maternal health

6. Combat HIV/AIDS malari education and other diseases.

7. Ensure environmental sustainability

8. Develop a global partnership for development

The paper deals with all the health related issues and gives a view how primary, secondary, and tertiary health care institutions can play an effective role and contribute in a systemic manner to help achieve the targets in regard to health issues of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by adopting the following strategies such as
1. Provision of health Services (Promotive, Preventive, Curative and Rehabilitative),
2. Operation Research,
3. Supervisory support,
4. Planning for Health Care in community,
5. Information Support.,
6. Training and Manpower Development,
7. Augmenting Referral System, and
8. Logistic Support Provision etc.