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India’s Health and Wellness Centers

health and wellness centersIndia has long lacked an adequate healthcare system, with disadvantaged communities being particularly excluded. Initiatives were implemented throughout the years to improve healthcare in India, culminating in 2018 with the inauguration of the Ayushman Bharat program. The program includes a two-pronged approach to achieving universal healthcare: the establishment of an insurance scheme aimed at impoverished people as well as the creation of 150,000 health and wellness centers (HWCs) throughout the country. While the former has been widely analyzed, the latter is underrated in its potential to improve the lives of India’s most vulnerable. The new HWCs will greatly expand India’s primary healthcare system and will provide impoverished communities with quality healthcare.

Ayushman Bharat and India’s Healthcare System

The Ayushman Bharat program was initiated in 2018 as a response to shortcomings in India’s healthcare system. Indian policymakers have directed much attention toward combating the rates of communicable diseases or diseases that are spread by bacteria. As a result, deaths due to these conditions have decreased. Meanwhile, non-communicable diseases were the cause of 62% of deaths in 2016. The need to reorient India’s healthcare system to this issue became apparent.

The Indian government’s National Health Policy 2017 detailed the need to upgrade the country’s existing health facilities by investing 2.5% of its gross domestic product (GDP) in healthcare by 2025. Ayushman Bharat launched the next year to facilitate this with one of the main goals of the program: the establishment of health and wellness centers throughout the country.

Health and Wellness Centers

India’s health and wellness centers (HWCs) intend to upgrade 150,000 existing health facilities by December 2022. These upgraded facilities are designed to remedy the country’s substandard healthcare by providing a greater range of services and being in touch with local needs. The expanded range of services is key to reaching more people as HWCs will treat issues such as non-communicable diseases and mental health while also providing dental care.

Additionally, HWCs seek to emphasize community engagement to effectively serve the areas they are located in. This includes health promotion through schools and other community centers as well as the empowerment of individual volunteers to improve local capacity. Furthermore, HWCs will encourage the participation of civil society and will engage with local nonprofit organizations to provide additional care.

With a goal of creating 150,000 HWCs by December 2022, India appears to be well on its way. As of November 2020, 50,000 facilities have been made operational, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. In terms of COVID-19, the work of HWCs is integral as they have been involved in efforts for contact tracing, community surveillance and early identification of cases. They have also ensured the provision of health services for people with co-morbidities who are at higher risk of contracting COVID-19.

The Road Ahead

With the combination of expanded services and community engagement, HWCs are designed to encourage Indians to pursue proper healthcare, thus decreasing the rates of diseases and other ailments. This is especially beneficial for India’s disadvantaged communities as they will have greater access to quality healthcare that is specifically tailored to their needs. In all, HWCs will greatly improve India’s chances of achieving universal healthcare.

– Nikhil Khanal
Photo: Flickr

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How BRAC is Improving Health in Bangladesh

Health in Bangladesh
Sir Fazle Hasan Abed KCMG founded the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee (BRAC) in 1972. The nonprofit began as a localized program in northeastern Bangladesh to promote agricultural reform and educational training. BRAC now influences over 11 countries in both Asia and Africa. It hones in on projects that work to improve social lives, social enterprises, national investments and university opportunities. The organization’s main accomplishments pertain to improving health in Bangladesh. Desiring the collaboration activists, BRAC enhances the abilities of individuals to gain work experience, especially with an environment that supports their physical and mental health.

Healthcare Issues in Bangladesh

Out-of-pocket spending on healthcare in Bangladesh is around 64.3% of total health spending. Bangladesh spends approximately $1.49 billion annually on situations concerning one’s health. This is concerning as average income households spend 7.5% of their total earnings on healthcare, with the least financially stable citizens, comprising the poorest 20%, spending 13.5%. The need to spend a large amount of income on healthcare puts a strain on Bangladesh families, especially since a little over 20% of the population lives below the national poverty line. Around 10% are employed for under $1.90 a day.

Money is not the only factor affecting people in Bangladesh. Only 34.6% of the population has access to purified drinking water as the country has the largest amount of citizens infected by arsenic-filled water. This dangerous chemical still contaminates nearly 10% of the water supply. Furthermore, 28.3% of the population drinks water infiltrated with various diseases that further damage physical health. Of further concern is the fact that sanitation only improves by 1.1% annually, not growing fast enough to better the environment that many citizens live in. Over 40% of latrines are unimproved, with the sewage waste even running into waterways due to a lack of sanitation programs. This exemplifies the necessity to improve individual health in Bangladesh.

Health and Nutrition

High annual healthcare costs are driving 5 million Bangladesh civilians into poverty. As a result, BRAC has deployed many healthcare workers to directly work with citizens in Bangladesh. They ensure citizens have access to quality, affordable health services. Establishing Essential Health Care (EHC), the nonprofit works to improve the immune systems of individuals. The EHC assures that people are not as easily susceptible to various diseases in the environment or water supplies. In addition to providing healthcare services for mothers and children, it also works on basic treatments to counteract the negative effects of acute respiratory infections at an affordable price. This specific program partnered with government agencies in the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) and now offers healthcare opportunities to more than 120 million people in the 64 districts of Bangladesh.

With the sub-section of the Challenging the Frontiers of Poverty Reduction – Targeting the Ultra Poor (CFPR-TUP) program, BRAC designs special needs for the 8% of the Bangladesh population that suffers from extreme poverty. Moreover, it created its Community-based Management of Acute Malnutrition (CMAM) program to provide supplementary foods to both mothers and children between the ages of 6 months and 5 years. Not only does this program support those suffering from malnutrition, but it eases the pain that mothers have to go through when breastfeeding and lack of vitamin intake. This enabled the education of 2 million women regarding healthy diets and the benefits of breastfeeding.

The WASH Program

The WASH program works toward improving water, sanitation and hygiene in Bangladesh and to create more hygienic practices. It has started its journey in the country by focusing on education. Many do not learn about the necessity of cleanliness. Through BRAC, however, 5,700 secondary schools have now included hygiene discussions in their curriculums. The organization is also working to ensure that local research facilities provide affordable opportunities to test every district’s water supplies.

Additionally, the nonprofit partnered with Jamalpur municipality to operate a waste plant. This effort counteracts the intrusion of waste into clean waterways. Volunteers and BRAC workers work through the WASH program to ensure health in Bangladesh. They especially focus on Rohingya refugee camps and areas that experience the effect of floods. Every dollar that goes to the program results in $4 towards sanitation improvements in Bangladesh.

BRAC wants to increase the professionalism of frontline services and introduce a strong variety of for-profit products and programs. It continues affordable programs to improve Bangladesh citizens’ health and focuses on cleaning the water supply, like introducing hanging latrines and counteracting the malnutrition that mothers and children suffer from. The Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee strives specifically to reform the healthcare system in this South Asian country through such actions. Its achievements include giving 2.52 million people access to safe drinking water with the aid of technological advancements. Through its various accomplishments, this nonprofit continues to achieve more every year even after nearly 50 years of service.

– Sylvia Vivian Boguniecki
Photo: Flickr

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New App Makes Tracking Healthcare Data in India Easier

tracking healthcare data

With assistance from UNICEF, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in India has introduced an Android-based tablet application called Auxiliary Nurse Midwives Online (ANMOL). This app makes recording and tracking healthcare data easier and more efficient.

In India, there are 293,000 Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANM), according to UNICEF. They are village-level health workers and are the first point of contact between communities and health services in India.

Typically, ANMs serve 3,000 to 5,000 people each and their work consists of providing primary health care services, nutrition and immunization programs, as well as child health and family planning services.

One crucial aspect of their job is collecting and tracking healthcare data. This is often seen as a slow, time-consuming process since ANMs must enter the data into registers, which are eventually entered into a central server.

The time spent maintaining registries could easily be reduced, which is ANMOL’s main objective. Manually updating the information is also problematic, as there are risks of information being entered incorrectly, or too late.

The ANMOL app is a multifaceted mobile tablet-based application and offers a solution to improving data collection and the overall standards of child and maternal health service provision in India.

It makes the work of ANMs paperless, bringing them online and exponentially reduces the time it takes to enter healthcare data into the central database.

“[ANMs] are able to use the tablets to enter and update the service records of beneficiaries on real time basis, ensuring prompt data entry and updates,” stated a report by UNICEF.

“ANMOL is aimed at improving the quality, effectiveness and timeliness of the delivery of quality services, specifically to rural populations, to ensure better healthcare for women and children,” said Dr. Srihari Dutta, Health Specialist at UNICEF India.

The app brings awareness to rural populations and educates them on different healthcare initiatives.

India, the world’s second most populous country, will benefit greatly from such an application, which allows for rapid entry of millions of individuals’ health information.

According to Matters India, in addition to data collection, ANMOL complements the roles of ANMs as counselors by providing readily available information about newborns, pregnant women and mothers in their respective areas.

“Prevention and awareness about non-communicable diseases, which are largely linked to our way of living, dietary habits, and lack of exercise will go a long way in ensuring that the country remains healthy,” said Shri J.P. Nadda, Union Minister of Health and Family Welfare.

On April 6, 2016, the Ministry of Health tweeted, “ANMOL App is Aadhaar enabled and will help in the authentication of records of field workers and beneficiaries. #digital health #TransformingIndia.”

– Michelle Simon

Photo: Flickr