National Commission for Scheduled Tribes Chairperson highlights the need for improvement in health services in tribal areas

Harsh Chouhan, Chairperson of the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes in a dialogue program SAMVAD organized under the title "Tribal Health and Evaluation of Health Systems in Scheduled Areas" at the India Habitat Centre on March 15 and 16 said that there is a need to improve health services in tribal areas.

Chouhan stated, "When it comes to the health care in the tribal societies, often we presume that the tribal people are superstitious, which is not true. If health care facilities do not reach them, then they look for alternatives. They definitely accept the modern health care services."

Citing the example of the COVID-19 vaccine, Chouhan said that the tribal people accepted the vaccine and no one denied it.

"The purpose of conducting this two-day dialogue SAMVAD was to deliberate about solutions to their health problems, but not about the problems alone," Chouhan further added.

He said, "There is a need to communicate with the tribal societies to understand them and their health needs. Tribal health infrastructure is certainly weak. Due to health problems, we observe an increasing debt among the tribal people these days. It is reported that a small tribal family carries a debt of about one to three lakh rupees, on an average."

The Chairperson further stated that the lack of minimum health care facilities also contributes to the migration of tribal families from their living places. So, providing modern health care services in tribal areas will certainly yield positive results in the overall development process of the tribal communities.

He said, "Traditional knowledge systems of the tribal people require to be vitalized further by facilitating access to them to collect medicinal herbs in the forests they live. The documentation of traditional medicines of the tribal communities should take into account, the intellectual property rights of the tribal people and secure patents for their herbal medicines".

Minister of State for Rural Development Fagan Singh Kulaste, Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Dr Bharati Pawar, Minister of State for Tribal Affairs Bishweshwar Tudu and Member of Parliament Samir Oraon also shared their experiences of working with the tribal communities and offered many useful suggestions for improving the health care in tribal areas during the two-day dialogue.

( With inputs from ANI )