National health policy.

PIP: The Indian Medical Association's demand for a National Health Policy has been met in the form of a Draft National Health Policy, which is inadequate. The Draft emphasizes increasing medical and paramedical manpower and overlooks the conditions of development necessary to good health. The Draft offers no guarantee that the State would protect, prevent, and promote people's health care. Instead, the Draft encourages self-medication and individual responsibility. This approach contradicts the Declaration of the Alma-Ata Conference, which states that primary health care is an integral part of the socioeconomic development process and that health sector activities must be coordinated with nutrition improvement, increases in production and employment, a more equitable distribution of income, antipoverty measures, and protection of the environment. The Draft pleads for utilization of traditional knowledge with modern practice in a synthesized "Indian" medicine. Modern medicine has proven its acceptability in its effectiveness; traditional medicine is acceptable because it is cheaper. The cost of modern medicine is not the fault of the system of medicine; it is costly because the government has failed to establish a real health movement in the country. Rather than cleaning the water system and preventing disease, the government presents alibis.^ieng