 In
August 1984 a few doctors, nurses and youths came forward to form
the Sangha with conviction and indomitable courage. Since then, the
organisation has been spreading out its activities of service to the
needy, far and wide, village after village. The Sangha has become
an object of love and admiration to the rural populace. Instilled
by the spirit of service, many youths have slowly developed this Sangha
into a registered voluntary organisation devoted to rural health services
to the poor and the poor have come to believe that these youths can
bring about a little succour and smile, at least, to some villages.
These very small village units after units have been taking gradually
finite shape of a complete voluntary health organisation for the rural
masses. The Sangha being committed for rural health development is
running rural health centres in six districts of West Bengal. All
the activities are designed and formulated as per the World Health
Organization guidelines of eight major components of Primary Health
Care programme:
- Education
concerning prevailing health problems and the methods of preventing
and controlling them;
- Promotion
of food supply and proper nutrition;
- An adequate
supply of safe drinking water and basic sanitation;
- Maternal
and child health care including family planning;
- Immunization
against major infectious diseases;
- Prevention
and control of locally endemic diseases;
- Appropriate
treatment of common diseases and injuries;
- Provision
of essential drugs.
A full-fledged
infrastructure for health care exists in every village centre of
the Sangha. Work in each centre is carried out round the week under
the supervision of local Community Health Guides. The mobile health
care unit helps to accelarate and sustain the activities of village
level workers. A team of voluntary doctors and trained paramedical
workers and other members visit the centres every weekend and intensively
supervise all activities. They also go deep inside the villages
in batches for motivational work. The main role of the weekend work
is supervision and assesment of the progress of work and its feedback
to the headquarters. There are other projects like family card introduction,
early child education programme, nutritional supplementation therapy
programme, and sanitation programme run under collaboration of CAPART
in selected areas. Specified people are alloted for these jobs.
| Progress
of the Sangha in Health Services |
| Primary
Healthcare Services |
When
Started (1984-85) |
Mid
Term (1995-96) |
Present status |
| Number
of Rural Centres & Sub-centres |
2 |
5+3 |
6+7 |
| Number
of villages covered |
10 |
59 |
27,039 |
| Population
served |
5,000 |
82,262 |
1,50,211 |
| No.
of Families |
850 |
13,012 |
31,616 |
| No.
of Trained Volunteers (CHG) |
- |
148 |
217 |
| Patients
treated with medicine |
14,000 |
22,000 |
21,787 |
| Pregnant
mothers treated |
Nil |
391 |
312 |
| Pathological
tests done |
Nil |
34 |
117 |
| Mothers
attending Mothers' Meeting |
Nil |
2,480 |
8,927 |
| Children
served in School Health Programmes |
Nil |
401 |
998 |
| Number
of Homes visited by volunteers |
Nil |
250 |
8,643 |
| Source
: Annual Report 2004-2005 and data collected by the Headquarters |
Based on a study
of a particular rural community, it has been amply demonstrated
that in almost all health awareness parameters, level of positive
knowledge and motivation was very high (about 90% in most cases).
The study also has indicated the degree of community participation
the Sangha is having in its rural health work. The figures are definitely
higher than the national average and it must be claimed that the
Sangha has achieved a satisfactory level of community involvement
in health development which is one of the key objectives of the
Sangha i.e. "health for all by community participation".
|
