For Nirmalaben, a midwife working in Borindra village of Jhagadia taluka in Bharuch district for almost a decade now, nothing is more painful than watching young women die in her arms during delivery.
She and the organisation she works for — Society for Education, Welfare and Action-Rural, known as Sewa-Rural but not associated with Ahmedabad-based SEWA — have helped bring down the maternal mortality rate (MMR) by 35 per cent and the neo-natal death by 45 per cent.
But, she says, a reproductive health training and resource centre could have reduced the MMR further.
On Friday, the society got closer to setting up the much-needed centre when it got the MacArthur awards for Creative and Effective Institutions. The award, instituted by a US foundation, comes with US $ 350,000.
For Nirmalaben and her organisation, the award is a recognition of 35 years of service.
Dr Pankaj Shah, a trustee of the organisation, told the Indian Express that while there were 19 deaths of mothers and 150 neo-natal deaths during 3,500 deliveries three years back, the figure went down to 10 and 90 respectively in 2006.
Shah said that in rural India since most child births take place at home, Sewa-Rural has started providing an intensive family-centered maternal care services at the doorsteps of 168 villages of Jhagadia taluka covering a population of 1.7 lakh.
“Our field staff try to create birth preparedness and complication readiness at the community level, which results into community sensitivity towards the care needed by a pregnant mother,” Shah said.
He further pointed out that the organization has 250 birth attendants, 175 frontline workers called Arogya Sakhis and 25 mid-level supervisors for healthy and trouble-free deliveries in the region.
One of the managing trustees of Sewa-Rural Dr Lata Desai said she and some of her friends wanted to work for the under-privileged.
“Though we wanted to work, who would have trusted us?” says Lata, adding that to add to their credentials and earn some money before they plunged into the venture, they migrated to US in 1971.
“We visited Gujarat a number of times after that. We visited the backward areas like Bharuch, Panchmahal and Kutch and finally zeroed upon Bharuch as people here were completely bereft of any medical service,”Lata added.
It was at this point, Kasturba maternity home, which was being run by a local charitable trust and facing financial crisis, was contemplating closing down. Appreciating the vision of these young professionals, the trust decided to let them handle the management of the maternity home and handed it over to them initially for seven-and-a-half years. The maternity home was then converted into a 40-bed community hospital. Today, this hospital has morphed into a 100-bed hospital with services like obstetrics, pediatrics, ophthalmology and general medicine. “In the last one year, we had 8,000 admissions in the hospital, with about 8,000 general surgeries and 1,000 deliveries," said Dr Shah, adding that most patients are treated free of cost.
“We will use the award money to set up a reproductive health training and resource centre at Sewa-rural campus, five km from Jhagadia at Gumandeo.”
Courtesy : Expressindia.com
She and the organisation she works for — Society for Education, Welfare and Action-Rural, known as Sewa-Rural but not associated with Ahmedabad-based SEWA — have helped bring down the maternal mortality rate (MMR) by 35 per cent and the neo-natal death by 45 per cent.
But, she says, a reproductive health training and resource centre could have reduced the MMR further.
On Friday, the society got closer to setting up the much-needed centre when it got the MacArthur awards for Creative and Effective Institutions. The award, instituted by a US foundation, comes with US $ 350,000.
For Nirmalaben and her organisation, the award is a recognition of 35 years of service.
Dr Pankaj Shah, a trustee of the organisation, told the Indian Express that while there were 19 deaths of mothers and 150 neo-natal deaths during 3,500 deliveries three years back, the figure went down to 10 and 90 respectively in 2006.
Shah said that in rural India since most child births take place at home, Sewa-Rural has started providing an intensive family-centered maternal care services at the doorsteps of 168 villages of Jhagadia taluka covering a population of 1.7 lakh.
“Our field staff try to create birth preparedness and complication readiness at the community level, which results into community sensitivity towards the care needed by a pregnant mother,” Shah said.
He further pointed out that the organization has 250 birth attendants, 175 frontline workers called Arogya Sakhis and 25 mid-level supervisors for healthy and trouble-free deliveries in the region.
One of the managing trustees of Sewa-Rural Dr Lata Desai said she and some of her friends wanted to work for the under-privileged.
“Though we wanted to work, who would have trusted us?” says Lata, adding that to add to their credentials and earn some money before they plunged into the venture, they migrated to US in 1971.
“We visited Gujarat a number of times after that. We visited the backward areas like Bharuch, Panchmahal and Kutch and finally zeroed upon Bharuch as people here were completely bereft of any medical service,”Lata added.
It was at this point, Kasturba maternity home, which was being run by a local charitable trust and facing financial crisis, was contemplating closing down. Appreciating the vision of these young professionals, the trust decided to let them handle the management of the maternity home and handed it over to them initially for seven-and-a-half years. The maternity home was then converted into a 40-bed community hospital. Today, this hospital has morphed into a 100-bed hospital with services like obstetrics, pediatrics, ophthalmology and general medicine. “In the last one year, we had 8,000 admissions in the hospital, with about 8,000 general surgeries and 1,000 deliveries," said Dr Shah, adding that most patients are treated free of cost.
“We will use the award money to set up a reproductive health training and resource centre at Sewa-rural campus, five km from Jhagadia at Gumandeo.”
Courtesy : Expressindia.com