Union Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan felicitated Himachal Pradesh for surpassing the Ayushman Bharat targets last year.
The Central Government had allocated a target of making 983 Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs) functional in 2020-21, and by March 31 this year the state had 1,022 functional HWCs, a 104 per cent success rate. The provision of comprehensive primary health care reduces morbidity and mortality at much lower costs and also significantly reduces the need for secondary and tertiary care. For achieving the target, all primary health centres and sub-centres are to be upgraded to HWCs.
HWCs at the health sub-centre level were being equipped and staffed with an appropriately trained primary health care team comprising a Community Health Officer, multi-purpose and ASHA workers. He added that Services provided at the HCWs consisted of 12 packages encompassing maternal, child, adolescent health and family planning and the national programmes would also be run through these centres.