Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) is a program to improve the overall quality of life of children and provide comprehensive care to all the children in the community. This program involves screening of children from birth to 18 years of age for four Ds- Defects at birth, Diseases, Deficiencies and Development delays, spanning 32 common health conditions for early detection and free treatment and management, including surgeries at tertiary level. Children diagnosed with identified health conditions are provided early intervention services and follow-up care at the district level. The program also offers flexibility to States to utilize services of private empanelled hospitals which have entered MoU with the States governments to provide treatment for conditions like cardiac cases, congenital defects treatments, thereby ensuring provision of timely care to children. All these services are provided free of cost, thus helping their families reduce out of pocket expenditure incurred on the treatment.

To facilitate screening of children, there is a strong convergence with the Ministry of Women and Child Development for screening children the age group 0 – 6 years enrolled at Anganwadi centres and with the Ministry of Human Resource Development for screening the children enrolled in Government and Government aided schools. The newborns are screened for birth defects in health facilities by the doctors at health facilities and during the home visit by ASHA (peripheral health worker).

District Early Intervention Centres, with multitude of services offering developmentally supportive care are being made operational at the district level for follow-up management of referred and treated cases. These units also link these children with tertiary level health services, in case surgical management is required. Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment is providing support by sponsoring equipment like hearing aids/implants for the identified children for disabilities.

An estimated 270 million children were expected to be covered across the country in a phased manner and till date (since 2014), we have reached around 800 million children through 11,200  mobile health teams operating from the sub-district level, all towards a healthier future of the nation.

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