A Correspondent
Dibrugarh: A review of the District Health Society for Dibrugarh district was held in the conference hall of the DC office’s on Monday under the chairmanship of Dibrugarh Deputy Commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha.
Reviewing various activities of the Health Department in the district, Dibrugarh Deputy Commissioner Pallav Gopal Jha stressed the importance of quality healthcare for pregnant women and children and directed health officials, including district and block-level community mobilizers of NHM to review, sensitize and improve the performance of ASHA and ANM workers, to improve the reach of healthcare facilities at the grassroots level, especially for the mother and child during pregnancy and during the post-delivery period. The Deputy Commissioner said infant and maternal mortality rate of the district would go down only with the timely intervention by ASHA and ANM.
He also directed health officials to take steps for effective implementation of government schemes related to pregnant women like wage compensation scheme for pregnant women in tea garden and Janani Suraksha Yojana to ensure better reach. He also directed NHM officials to prepare a proper IEC plan to make people, especially tea garden communities, aware of such schemes so that maximum pregnant mothers could get benefit from the scheme. Issues such as lack of knowledge on detection of high-risk pregnancy cases, the importance of exclusive breastfeeding, danger signs of illnesses in newborns, vaccination, growth chart monitoring among ASHA-ANMs and non-maintenance of due list by ASHA-ANMs were also discussed in the meeting.
The meeting also discussed the findings made by the State Common Review Mission of National Health Mission on non-availability of certain listed drugs and lab test facility, and bio medical waste disposal system in some BPHCs and FRUs along with MMU services in tea garden areas. The meeting was attended by Additional Deputy Commssioner of Dibrugarh, Dipu Kumar Deka, Joint Director of Health Services, Dr Udayan Kumar Baruah , SDM&HOs and NHM officials.