Health of the villages cannot be improved with health services alone. Other factors affecting health of the people like health awareness, nutrition, hygiene, sanitation, misconceptions, blind faith, illiteracy etc. needed to be addressed. To address these issues Community Health and Rural Development Department was started to implement various health projects in the surrounding villages.
The project was started in 1997 to decrease malnutrition in children and improve their health. A total of 101 Anganwadis are under this project with services to about 3000 children every year. Till date 12761 children have been treated for malnutrition in this project.
Gram Seva organizes meetings of adolescent girls and boys in villages and schools to impart life skills education to them. Community health workers screen them for anaemia, malnutrition and other illness and refer them to the hospital
A rise in cases of Paralysis in the Hospital was noted in recent years. Problems like cataract affect nearly 50% of the elderly in the villages. The elderly are not only affected by non communicable diseases but are also physically and economically dependent and neglected by children leading to lack of medical care. The geriatric project was started in 2010 to reach out to the elderly in the surrounding villages, find the health problems in them and help them to manage them. The project is implemented in 16 villages and about 2000 elderly have been medically screened by house to house survey.
When the organization was started in 1994 there was lack of health awareness in the community which accentuated the health problems. To increase the health awareness in community different health education sessions are conducted in the villages, in the hospital wards, in camps and clinics and educational institutes. Audio visual aids and posters and videos in local dialect on various subjects like TB, snake bite, diarrhoea, antenatal care, nutrition, addictions, sickle cell anaemia, etc. Every year nearly 200 to 300 such sessions are conducted in hospital and community.
Mental health is the most neglected of health problems not only by community but also by the healthcare system. Yet with changing lifestyles, stress and factors like lockdowns, social distancing etc. we are seeing a surge in mental health patients both in OPD and indoor. Hence the organization started the mental health project in 20 villages, recently. There is a need for a comprehensive programme for identification, medical management and rehabilitation of mentally ill patients with the help of team of field workers, counseler and psychiatrist. Our field workers do door to door survey and screening for mental health patients and send them to psychiatric clinics for medical management. They are followed regularly for compliance and their families are counselled regarding their care. A total of 52 patients have been identified and followed regularly. Awareness programs are conducted in the community regarding mental health and its management.
Dang is a tribal, hilly, forest area with scattered villages and difficult terrain. To provide the tribal communities of Dang with comprehensive health and development services we have selected 25 villages in Waghai block. We have selected village level workers, who shall help us in providing health and development services in women’s health, child health and non- communicable diseases and also screen and follow the patients and generate health awareness. We conduct mobile medical clinics in these villages at regular intervals and provide general medical and paediatric services to the villagers with special focus on malnutrition in children, women’s health and non-communicable diseases like hypertension and diabetes. Income generation activities for the village women have also been started, like production and sale of low cost eco-friendly sanitary napkins, sewing classes, sale of smokeless gas stoves and kitchen gardening. About 44 women are working in different income generation activities at present and 32 have been enrolled for sewing classes.