It took nine long years and the two biggest global pandemics — swine flu in 2009 and Covid-19 in 2020 — for the Ministry of Health to release the Public Health Management Cadre (PHMC) 2022 blue booklet. However, health experts say health policy may not be adequate for controlling future pandemics in the present century.
 
Dr Santosh Kadam, Vice-president, Indian Medical Association (IMA) Maharashtra, said, “Health sector is big like railways, education etc, involving 130 crore people. IMA has been constantly demanding a bigger portion of GDP be spent on the health sector. The public health sector in India should be developed like the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK. To achieve this, IMA has demanded that IMS (Indian Medical Services), like IAS, IPS, IRS etc, should be part of UPSC. This IMS cadre should work independently,” said Dr Kadam.

What booklet states

The booklet states, “Amidst the ongoing pandemic, the delivery of essential healthcare services were disrupted globally. The findings of the committee highlighted that the country needs about 77 to 80 health workers per 10,000 population to achieve 80 per cent coverage of the population for delivering an essential basket of healthcare services.”