Health in Bhutan
As a component of Gross National Happiness, affordable and accessible health care is central to the public policy of Bhutan.
[1][2][3][4] The Constitution of Bhutan charges the Royal Government with ensuring a "safe and healthy environment," and with providing "free access to basic public health services in both modern and traditional medicines".
[8] In regards to the right to health amongst the adult population, the country achieves only 80.7% of what is expected based on the nation's level of income.
[1]: iii On May 2, 2011, Bhutan launched its telephonic Health Help Centre (HHC), which had proved successful over the prior two months.
The HHC provides two services: Emergency Response and the Healthcare Helpline, both accessible through landed and mobile phones.
Widespread health concerns included diarrhea (2,892 per 10,000 people) and pneumonia (1,031) among children under age 5; skin infections (1,322); conjunctivitis (542); hypertension (310); and intestinal worms (170).
[1]: iii In 2010, the Ministry of Health noted a growing trend of unsafe abortions among Bhutanese women (466 in 2003; 1,057 in 2009), apparently performed in neighboring India, contributing to Bhutan's high maternal mortality rate.
[19]: §§ 61–67 The Food Act, like other Bhutanese legislation, defines relevant offenses and penalties for failing to conform to proscribed laws and regulations.
[19]: §§ 58–87 Tobacco sale and consumption is actively discouraged by the government of Bhutan through education, economic, and penal incentives.
The Office acts as the agent of the Board responsible for coordinating most of the actual implementation of Bhutan's tobacco policy.
[20] Alcohol consumption among students has risen in the recent past, resulting in several expulsions from Bhutan's elite Sherubtse College.
[21] Ara, the traditional alcohol of Bhutan, is most often home made from rice or maize, either fermented or distilled,[22] and may only be legally produced and consumed privately.
[4]: §§ 50–53 The Board is bound to ensure treatment, rehabilitation, and social reintegration of drug-dependent persons, through interventions, counseling, and detoxification; it is thus required by law to maintain adequate personnel and institutions to provide such services.
[4]: § 56 Persons dependent on drugs are subject to compulsory treatment and rehabilitation; those who refuse to submit voluntarily must be confined in criminal custody.
Successful compliance with such a regimen allows courts to discharge other penalties related to narcotics, such as prison terms and fines.
[31] Since 2011, the number of recorded deaths has increased by around 50% for the years 2012 and 2013,[32] which clearly places the Himalayan Kingdom among the countries with the highest suicide rates in the world.
[34] The most common diseases in the 1980s were gastrointestinal infections caused by waterborne parasites, mostly attributable to the lack of clean drinking water.
In 1987, with WHO support, the government envisioned plans to immunize all children against diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus, polio, tuberculosis, and measles by 1990.
The government's major medical objective by 2000 was to eliminate waterborne parasites, diarrhea and dysentery, malaria, tuberculosis, pneumonia, and goiter.
Progress in leprosy eradication was made in the 1970s and 1980s, during which time the number of patients had decreased by more than half, and by 1988 the government was optimistic that the disease could be eliminated by 2000.
Despite improved amenities provided to the people through government economic development programs, Bhutan still faced basic health problems.
Factors in the country's high morbidity and death rates included the severe climate, less than hygienic living conditions, for example long-closed-up living quarters during the winter, a situation that contributes to the high incidence of leprosy, and smoke inhalation from inadequately ventilated cooking equipment.
With the encouragement of the WHO, a "reference laboratory" was established at the Thimphu General Hospital to test for AIDS and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) as a precautionary measure.
