7-Jun-2017: National Human Milk Bank and Lactation Counselling Centre Inaugurated.
‘Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh’, a National Human Milk Bank and Lactation Counselling Centre is inaugurated at the Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC). This would be the largest human milk bank and lactation counselling centre available under the public sector in North India. It is envisaged that with this donor human milk bank, all newborns in and around Delhi will have access to life saving human milk regardless of the circumstances of their birth.
“Vatsalya – Maatri Amrit Kosh” opened at Lady Hardinge Medical College in collaboration with the Norwegian government, Oslo University and Norway India Partnership Initiative (NIPI) Newborn Project, is a national human milk bank and lactation counseling centre that will collect, pasteurize, test and safely store milk that has been donated by lactating mothers and make it available for infants in need. In addition, this facility will protect, promote and support breastfeeding of their own healthy mothers by providing lactation support to mothers through dedicated lactation counsellors. This project will not only act as a dedicated centre to support breastfeeding and improve infant survival but also act as the teaching, training and demonstration site for other milk banks to be established under the Ministry Of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India.
Even when we know the potential of mother’s milk for a child, breastfeeding rates are low in India. Early initiation of breastfeeding is only 40%, even when the institutional delivery has increased to 78.9%. “In view of this, Mothers Absolute Affection (MAA) programme has been launched to create awareness regarding breastfeeding as being the most cost-effective way of enhancing the child’s immunity.
The decline in maternal and child mortality in India is much faster than the global average rate of decline and the frontline workers need appreciation for their dedicated work. We are poised to enhance Universal Health Coverage in the country and are conscious of quality issues. Several efforts are underway through NHM to improve affordability, quality and access to healthcare services.
6-Jun-2017: ‘Skill for Life, Save a Life’ initiative to promote skill development in the health sector
Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare has launched the ‘Skill for Life, Save a Life’ initiative. India enjoys a demographic dividend as more than 65% youth are below the age of 35 years and the Government is determined to seize this opportunity by providing adequate skills and employability to the youth for a strong foundation for continued and sustainable growth. ‘Skills for Life, Save a Life’ Initiative’ aims to upscale the quantity and quality of trained professionals in the healthcare system. Under this initiative various courses are planned to be initiated targeting specific competencies for healthcare professionals as well as for general public.
Skilling the youth enhances the employability and skilled India will help the nation reap rich dividends. This shall reduce the gap between expectations of employment of the youth and the actual job they get. Skill enhances economy of the country, too by reducing the gap between demand and supply of trained and skilled manpower in every field. The potential for skilled healthcare workers and professionals is immense in the country. Such courses ensure that the health sector gets the adequate skilled health workers.
Curriculum has been designed by National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW) and AIIMS, Delhi. The Health Minister highlighted that in India 1,324 accidents occur on roads every day and a life is lost every 4 minutes and measures taken in the first 10 minutes can save a life. It was thus announced that the Ministry is initiating its’ ‘Skill a Life, Save a Life’ program by launching First Responder course for professionals as well as general public, to be conducted in Central and State government training institutes from the next month across the country in each district, to empower every single citizen of the country to be the first person to provide first aid and initial care in case of an emergency.
India is working towards the attainment of the global mandate of Universal Health Coverage (UHC) for providing affordable, accountable and appropriate health care of assured quality to the fellow citizens, which is possible through substantive and strategic investment in the health workforce. This is part of a larger plan and program for ensuring Universal Health Coverage. This program will provide trained and skilled people by broadening the base to include the community. Through such programs, we create a mass of ‘first responder’ who complements the specialists/experts to fill vacuum of adequate trained professionals.
1-May-2017: First-ever Induction Training Programme for new recruits of Central Health Services (CHS)
The Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, Shri J.P. Nadda inaugurated the first-ever induction training programme for the newly appointed General Duty Medical Officers (GDMOs) of the Central Health Service Cadre at National Institute of Health and Family Welfare (NIHFW).
This is the first time such a foundation training programme is being undertaken. This will also orient you to your roles and responsibilities about healthcare delivery systems in the country, legal ethical issues, and schemes programme of the Ministry, OPD, emergencies, pharmacies, administration AYUSH, Yoga, etc. The course provides an opportunity to expand ones horizons, learn the philosophy and depth of life.
The nine week course especially designed for the new recruits will enable the medical officers to broaden their knowledge base, confidence level and experience in public health facilities. This course will contribute greatly to the public healthcare of the country. With technical skills, soft skills are also important as doctors deal with lives and wellbeing of patients.
Central Health Service (CHS) Cadre is a cadre governed by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and its doctors are working all over the country providing health care services to a large number of people. CHS has four sub-cadres, namely, GDMOs, Teaching, Non-Teaching Specialists and Public Health, with a sanctioned strength of more than 4000 of which the GDMOs constitute the largest chunk, more than 2000.
On an average, every year around 400 to 600 doctors are recruited through UPSC. Incidentally, throughout the under-graduate and post-graduate education and thereafter, these doctors are not been trained in the areas of management, supervision, leadership, communication, conduction of office procedures, etc. The training module is designed to fill this gap so that they can look after the administration of the organization and implementation of various national health programmes for which they have very limited exposure.