Health Care
A baseline survey carried out when CHIRAG began work in the area, indicated that health care was among the most important needs expressed by the local people.
The health service infrastructure in rural Uttaranchal is poor.
Such government facilities as are available provide only skeletal services of
the most elementary kind. Consequently, health care has, for over 15 years, been a priority area for CHIRAG. Through
two rural health centres, the overt demand of the local populace for
community and hospital services is partially met. Given limited resources, and
the context of a tradition oriented society wherein daily life is governed by
customary practices, efforts are directed towards causes of ailments as much as
their symptoms. Women, much more than men, are kept custom bound with associated
rituals related with dietary, sanitation and other living habits. CHIRAG deploys
resources that it is able to raise, in the priority area of reproductive health
and mother and child care apart from its overall focus on general medicine.
Curative Services
Two rural health centres (RHCs) are run by CHIRAG in Sitla
and Sargakhet. Ailments commonly treated include urinary tract infections, leucorrhoea, cardio-vascular disorders, respiratory infections, gastro-intestinal, dermatological and paediatric
disorders. Ante-natal cases undergo haemoglobin, blood group,
VDRL and urine testing using in-house laboratory services, upgraded to expand
the range of blood and urine tests. Minor surgeries also get conducted in both
the RHCs. A full time general practitioner along with seven trained health
workers manage these clinics. In all, about 25,000 people have been treated by
CHIRAG medical staff.
Preventive and Extension Services
CHIRAG is committed to the importance of services provided
outside its curative clinics. We believe that rather than attempting to cover
the entire region with facilities, which would require funds and trained
manpower that would be hard to get, it is much more cost efficient and
culturally appropriate to build a strong cadre of village based health workers.
These can be trained to treat simple ailments and recognise potentially serious
ones. Spreading awareness on improved hygiene and simple preventive measures can
greatly reduce the incidence of disease and thereby reduce the curative
infrastructure needed for the region.
Preventive activities include immunisation, information on
early identification and treatment of diseases and sanitation awareness. CHIRAG
lays great emphasis on creating awareness of the outmoded customs and rituals
that are deleterious for the health of the people. This is especially true of
the ante-natal, neo-natal and post-natal duration that the women have to
undergo. There are 36 village-based health workers and trained midwives who are
the backbone of the health programme. There is a special emphasis on the health
of children and women. Health, family welfare and other community based
awareness related campaigns to do with sanitation, hygiene and water are also
held.
Sanitation
Environmental sanitation through construction of toilets,
garbage pits, compost pits, soak pits and village clean-up campaigns, have been
a constant feature of organisational activities in the duration of its
existence. These activities intensified under the Swajal project. So far over
3,400 latrines have been built, in addition to over 770 soak pits and 500
compost pits. A useful innovation made by CHIRAG was to insist with village
communities to build a bathroom along with the toilets, in order to provide much
needed privacy to women. Lack of proper bathrooms, and therefore proper ablutions
had been leading to incidences of uterine tract infections as high as 80%
amongst rural women in Uttaranchal. The bathrooms have had a direct impact in
the form of improved health of women and consequently, that of children too.
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