The Bridge to Recovery- Healthcare

Just 11% of Jharkhand’s population has access to institutional health care; infant mortality rate is at 69 per 1000 live births; only 36% of new mothers receive the three mandated antenatal care visits; only 30% of infants are fully immunized; almost 80% of children suffer from anaemia, 59% children below 3 years of age are underweight. Witch doctors continue to prescribe dhabna — branding an infant 11 times with an iron rod — to cure stomach ailments.

In this grim context, we have initiated our efforts to ensure better delivery of health care services through creating and improving health infrastructures with support partners like SIG-ICICI, Centre for Development and Population Activity (CEDPA), USAID, GOAL India, Government of Jharkhand, International Finance Corporation and other agencies.

Starting with two secondary care hospitals (Shalini Hospitals network) at Rukka and Narayan Soso, and 11 Health Sub-Centres across two blocks — Ormanjhi and Angara —of Ranchi District, KGVK has also renovated 46 government Sub-Centres and two government primary Health Centres across the state. At the TVM Gurukul, Rukka, KGVK is also running an Auxiliary Nurse-cum-Midwife Training School, the 10th such institute to receive affiliation from the MID India Board of Education, Nagpur.

KGVK has also pioneered the use of mobile health vans in remote areas well equipped with a first aid kit, an X-ray machine and pathological support for blood collection. A doctor accompanies the mobile van from time to time.

Up next, KGVK will launch an ambitious healthcare franchisee model and a cutting-edge telemedicine hub.


Key Projects
Natural Family Planning Project

Partners: Institute of Reproductive Health, Georgetown University, Washington and USAID
Initiatives:
  • Introduction of the Standard Days Method of family planning, where women were taught to avoid unwanted pregnancy by tracking their fertility cycle with coloured Cycle Beads or SDM Mala
  • Knowledge and resource building of Self-help Groups and Sahiyyas or community health workers to spread awareness of SDM through demonstrations and counseling
Low Birth Weight Project

Partners: ICICI  Centre for Child Health and Nutrition and CINI
Initiatives:
  • Improving the quality of and access to mandated health services through a life-cycle approach, covering pregnancy, infancy, childhood and adolescence
  • Building capacities of Sahiyyas and linking them to expectant mothers, their families and Village Health Committees
  • Introducing behaviour-change communication through one-on-one counseling, family support, posters, nutritional education
  • Focusing on reducing child mortality, low birth weight (less than 2500 grams) among infants, as well as malnutrition and anaemia among pregnant women
Adolescent Health (Reproductive and Sexual Health)
Partner: National Foundation for India, New Delhi, ICICI Centre for Child Health and Nutrition (ICCHN)
Initiatives:
  • Generating awareness on the adolescent body and safe sexual practices
  • Removing awkwardness while generating information through 500 peer groups within communities
  • Engaging adolescents in meaningful community development activities

HIV/AIDS Awareness
Partner: International Finance Corporation (World Bank Group), International Labour Organization, CARE India, BBC World Service Trust, Child in Need Institute, Jharkhand State AIDS Control Society
Initiatives:
  • Syndrome-based treatment of Sexually-transmitted Infections (STI) and Reproductive Tract Infections (RTI)
  • Behaviour change communication for commercial sex workers, intravenous drug users, homosexuals, truckers, migrant labourers, adolescents and the community in general
  • Promotion of condom use through appointed condom vendors and safe sex
  • Treatment and rehabilitation of HIV-positive patients

Thumbs Up!

Jharkhand Government as part of State Policy has adopted the Low Birth Weight Project at the national level.  In the Project Sample Area, 90.3% babies weighed 2500 grams and above, compared to the state average of around 40%

The Project also earned us the prestigious TERI Award for Corporate Social Responsibility in 2006!

Round the corner!

  • A franchisee lab initiative that seeks to serve 200,000 rural people, mainly the BPL population, in Jharkhand, in its first phase. Click here to read more »
  • A telemedicine hub. Click here to read more »
Certificate from WHO on Polio Surveillance   Certificate of appreciation from the District TB Control programme as the Best Service provider for DOTS (Direct Observation Therapy)
 

 

 

New Indians ..............................................................................................

Meet the New Indians

  • She fought fear

    When Sunita Ram’s husband died in Chuti village, she became his tragic living memory. An AIDS victim, Sunita’s husband passed HIV to his wife and his four-year-old son. Her in-laws and neighbours, whose fear of AIDS fed their hostility, desperately tried to drive her and her child out.

    Sambhu Biswas, an outreach worker of KGVK’s Targeted Intervention (TI) project to control HIV/AIDS from spreading, met Sunita with his team and held sensitization meetings with the influential people in her neighbourhood. KGVK also applied for financial assistance from the Jharkhand AIDS Control Society for the treatment of Sunita and her son, as she belonged to the below-poverty-line category. Gradually, the silver linings appeared: Sunita’s in-laws accepted her and her son back, she got money for treatment and she also joined TI as a peer educator, counseling and educating people on HIV/AIDS. Today, she is also an active member of Jharkhand Network of Positive People. From an outcast, Sunita Ram has fought her way bravely to New India.