Community health Programme in Sundarban

Mrs. Mallika 24 years old wife of Mr. Dipankar live in Dakshin Kashinagar of Harembogopalpur Gram Panchayat under Patharpratima block. Her husband Dipankar is artisan, makes different sculptures of god and goddess and sale for worship festivals. The amount of money he earns is not adequate to maintain his family and lead life in extreme financial hardship. He red up to class V standard only and can’t explore any other better job option due poor education. Mallika has a five year’s old son and again she became pregnant. The community health worker identified her as pregnant women and advised her to go to antenatal camp for check-ups. Blood tests were done accordingly and observed that her hemoglobin status was low as 8gm/dL. According to advice of the health worker she attended doctor again and she was prescribed medicines and iron & calcium tablets by the doctor. She followed the instruction of doctor regularly, took supplementary medicines and iron & calcium tablets and after three months significant improvement observed in her hemoglobin status, which increased up to 9.8gm/dL. During rest of her pregnancy period she was well without any complication and delivered baby with normal birth weight.

Mallika says, “I could never think, how effective were the supplementary medicines provided by Sabuj Sangha.”

 Astami , wife of Mr. Chandrakanta  is 23 years old, lives with her husband in Hearambagopalpur village with her parents-in-laws and one son of four (4) years. Candrakanta has no cultivable land and he goes to deep sea by trawler catching fish with a fishermen group and this is the only means of his livelihood. The family is very poor and Candrakanta somehow maintains his family with financial adversity, since he gets meager amount of money from his occupation.

Five years back, when Astami was first time pregnant, she was brought under the treatment of local quack. Her husband used to come home at intervals of 20/30 day even more and pay cost of her pregnancy care to quack. Her parents-in-laws even Chandrakanta never thought about the antenatal cares for her and decided to conduct delivery at home. The health workers of Sabuj Sangha, after identifying her pregnancy advised for proper antenatal cares, its necessity and institutional delivery even they provided cares to their level best. The health workers wanted to know about her delivery plan but they didn’t give any clear opinion on that. The parents-in-laws and Chandrakanta didn’t listen to the advice of health workers. At her advanced stage, one day the quack suggested them to admit her to a nursing home at Raidighi for delivery and they did that. Fortunately, Astami delivered a male baby in the nursing home and a poor man like Chandrakanta had to pay Rs. 14,000.00. If the quack could advise them to go to Government health institution they could save such amount of money.

This incidence opened the eyes of the family members of Chandrakanta and they realized the situation. During the second pregnancy of Astami they didn’t go to quack but consulted the health workers of Sabuj Sangha. As guided by them, Chandrakanta took a Health Card from CHPS programme office and got free facility of doctor’s consultation. She became regular attending ANC camps for checkups, received iron & calcium tablets also other medicinal support and followed the instructions given by the doctor and CHPS team members. In due course Astami delivered her second male baby with birth weight of 2.550 kilograms in Community Delivery Centre (CDC) of Sabuj Sangha free of cost. All the family members of Astami are now highly convinced about the service delivery through community health programme and Chandrakanta said, “Really I committed mistake during the first pregnancy of my wife, I lost the amount of money that is huge for me. I and my parents realized that, the quality services are delivered through CHPS. I will advise my neighbors to attend CHPS team members for any health issues in future. I thank Sabuj Sangha providing such services to poor people of Sunderbans.”