Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Health, Medical Education & Family Welfare, Arun Kumar Singh, today gave several new ideas to enhance healthcare facilities in rural sectors. Speaking as the chief guest in a consultative workshop organised by Tata Steel Foundation he lauded the efforts of the TSF and made suggestions on having blood storage facilities at the Community Healthcare Centres (CHCs), creation of childcare and expecting mother kits, adolescent healthcare scheme and few others that would suitably address the concerns around maternal and neonatal health. A coffee table book, encapsulating the ten fruitful years of MANSI+ was also unveiled at the event by the chief guest.
The Tata Steel Foundation brought together representatives of State machinery, American India Foundation, organisational healthcare practitioners and grassroots healthcare workers for a state consultation on MANSI+ (Maternal and Neonatal Survival Initiative) in a workshop organised here on Monday.
MANSI+, launched in 2021-22 and building on the learnings of earlier years, presently reaches every rural household in remote and hard-to-reach areas in the Kolhan division of Jharkhand, saturating all 38 developmental blocks across three districts - East Singhbhum, West Singhbhum and Seraikela-Kharsawan, in a life-cycle-based approach.
Adding to the conversation, Sourav Roy, CEO, TSF, said, “Health has always been a core focus area for us at the Tata Steel Foundation. We have been making consistent efforts in promoting health-seeking behaviour through various pillars, like, in MANSI+, we have operation sunshine - an app that records real-time data and sends an alarm for immediate intervention. MANSI+ is a comprehensive three-pronged approach which covers adolescent sexual health and awareness, the nutritional aspect of expecting mothers and the holistic growth of the mother and the child. And, the success of MANSI+ in the last ten years has motivated to have loftier ambitions by recalibrating our approach to overall health, as we are now taking small steps in addressing concerns around non-communicable and vector-borne diseases, anaemia and preventable blindness.”
The challenges that lie entrenched in the healthcare sector were suitably taken up during an open house discussion that observed inputs from the organisational healthcare practitioners. The diverse inputs set the tone for the experience sharing of the frontline healthcare workers through a baseline survey and on-ground observations. The event also saw the participation of sahiyyas and MANSI mitras who have been an integral part of the journey, in making healthcare accessible even in the farthest corners of communities, where commute is extremely challenging.
