Provide Healthcare to 40,000 Rural Indian Women

Health is one of the important aspects of human life. Corona pandemic has taught us the lesson that prevention is better than cure. Ashray, through its mobile medical unit has been serving people of underserved regions, ensuring healthy life. Our health workers are trained intensively and are committed towards serving the people at grassroot level.

Looking at the severity and novelty of the CORONA virus, our health workers were given following trainings:

a)     COVID – 19

b)     Vaccination

c)      Mucormycosis

d)     Menstrual hygiene

The details of the training are as under:

a)     COVID – 19 – in the year 2020, WHO declared COVID-19, pandemic. The virus spread with leaps and bounds and lockdown brought disaster for daily wage migrant worker and small business. Numerous people lost their life. In such a condition health care workers became the frontline warriors and worked day and night to spread awareness about the pandemic. In order to make our healthcare workers fight the battle, a training session was organized by Ashray. It started with a preliminary discussion to assess the knowledge of health workers on COVID. Based on their knowledge as well as gaps observed, we formulated the module. Sessions were conducted on Corona prevention and precautions, its diagnosis (at preliminary level), referrals and on training sessions for community members. At the end we conducted an assessment test to assess their understanding.

b)     Vaccination – it is critical that healthcare professionals and personnel are familiar with the specific COVID – 19 vaccine product(s) in their facility’s inventory. To enhance their knowledge on vaccination, we imparted a training which involved guidance for vaccine handling, mechanism of action and administration that may differ for each vaccine product.

c)      Mucormycosis – the outbreak of black and white fungus has caused another disaster. We trained our health workers on following topics – diagnosis of mucormycosis, its causes, symptoms, treatment and prevention. The training started with a pre-liminary examination to assess the level of awareness among the health workers. At the end of the training session another examination was conducted to assess their understanding.

d)     Menstrual hygiene - it is one of the least discussed topics and has numerous taboos associated with it. Due to lack of awareness young girls and women suffer from health issues which sometimes becomes fatal. To spread awareness about menstrual hygiene, we trained our health workers about women anatomy, reproductive health and menstrual cycle. Along with that they were also informed about various myths around menstruation. A group discussion was held to know their ideas and myths they have heard about it. During the sessions those myths and their questions were also cleared.

During all our training sessions we abided by the COVID prevention norms. Most of our sessions were held online. During the sessions health workers were shown videos and materials related to training were shared online with them.

Impact by Numbers:

1. A total of 6361 households were reached this quarter.
2. We distributed a total of 600 packets of sanitary napkins in the community.
3. A total of 300 households were covered for awareness visit on COVID vaccination.

Ashray has been involved actively in providing free health care services and hygiene supplies through our Mobile Medical Unit (MMU) in Santalpur Taluka.

Considering the current scenario of COVID-19 and its underlying aspects, this quarter, we decided to focus on the pre-medical conditions, which if present, may prove fatal for any COVID patient.

In this quarter, two virtual training sessions were conducted for the health workers on the following topics:

1)      Training on Diabetes and Antimicrobial Resistance

2)      Training on Breast Cancer, Cervical Cancer and Polio

Training on Diabetes and Antimicrobial Resistance:

The first chronic disease that we focused on was Diabetes. Diabetes is a chronic condition that occurs either when the pancreas does not produce enough insulin or when the body cannot effectively use the insulin it produces. Over time, the health impact that diabetes has, includes damaging the heart, blood vessels, eyes, kidneys and nerves.

As indicated by the World Health Organization(WHO), practicing simple lifestyle measures such as achieving & maintaining a healthy body weight, eating a healthy diet, avoiding sugar & saturated fats and avoiding tobacco can help prevent diabetes and its complications. The purpose of these virtual trainings was to know whether the health workers had enough knowledge about diabetes and to assess their knowledge about possible preventive measures to be taken. To facilitate the learning process, we developed a training manual on diabetes with all the information that will be required by the health worker to spread awareness on the issue. Information on major types of diabetes, the age group they generally appear in, causes & symptoms and their risk factors were shared upon. We also provided them with routine exercise schedule to prevent the complications.

The MMU operating in these villages provides a medium to understand the perception of community on medicine use and overuse. Moving along the lines of same perception, we decided to include a virtual session on antimicrobial resistance. This session included a discussion on main drivers of antimicrobial resistance including role of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene procedures, lack of awareness and knowledge at community level and misconceptions related to increased medicine use.

Keeping in mind the norms of COVID-imposed situation, discussion related to the learning material was conducted via virtual application to reach as many field workers as possible.

Training on Breast Cancer, Cervical Cancer and Polio:

As a part of the maternal child health and reproductive health program, we conducted a training session covering cervical cancer, breast cancer and polio. The health workers who attended this virtual training session were taught different stages of cervical and breast cancer, their underlying complications and risk factors and simple breast cancer examining techniques for their self-check-up. In order to spread awareness on polio vaccination for the new born children, we shared upon the information regarding first phases of vaccination. Keeping in mind the schedule of Mamta Divas, we scheduled the dissemination of polio vaccination information accordingly.

Our efforts were also directed in conducting a refresher training for health workers which included topics such as revised formats for reporting, observing COVID-19 precautions while conducting households, and tracking new COVID infections in the community. This virtual training was conducted to streamline the patient documentation at MMU level.

Impact by the numbers:

1)      A total of 7318 households were reached in this quarter.

2)      We distributed a total of 4815 packets of Sanitary napkins in the community.

3)      A total of 401 households, which included 110 post-natal visits, 291 antenatal &adolescent health visits were conducted to spread awareness on breast cancer, cervical cancer and polio.