Giving Compass' Take:

• Shagun Sabarwal stresses the importance of thwarting coronavirus' efforts to topple India's healthcare services in order to preserve the entire health infrastructure.

• How might a crumbling health infrastructure disproportionately impact vulnerable populations? What can you do too maintain the integrity of essential healthcare services in at-risk communities?

• Understand why your giving is integral to supporting vulnerable communities during the pandemic.

As various regions of India now begin to emerge from lockdown, an important step will be confronting the consequences of disruptions in routine services provided by government health workers, including immunisation, antenatal checks, and nutrition drives. These preventive healthcare services form the backbone of India’s aspiration to be a healthy country with low rates of infant, child, and maternal mortality and morbidity, and systematic measures to correct for recent disruptions are essential.

Unsurprisingly, the COVID crisis has taken a toll on the already weak government health infrastructure, especially in rural India. Data released by the National Health Mission, covering a majority of sub-centres, primary health centres, community health centres, district hospitals, and sub-district hospitals, as well as some private facilities in rural India, shows a worrying trend related to use of preventive healthcare services. For example, there is a sharp decline in children receiving basic vaccines, and in medical interventions performed on pregnant women, indicating a potential increase in home births.

The recent drop in use of healthcare services caused by COVID may be longer lasting and threaten the achievement of India’s health goals if those who only recently began utilising preventive healthcare services fall back into their previous pattern of not using the formal healthcare system.

While the Indian healthcare system continues to reel under the pressure generated by the COVID-19 pandemic, it would be good to identify quick win solutions that can help prevent a complete derailment of our health targets. Cost-effective and scalable solutions that have been rigorously tested can play an important role in informing the health strategy of state governments.

Read the full article about India's healthcare system by Shagun Sabarwal at AVPN.