Preventive Services

The School Health Programme

Health Monitor checking for basic health problems

Introduced in 2005 the School Health Programme involved the Training of School Teachers by professional organisations (The National Association for the Blind and the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute for Hearing Handicapped) in the identification of vision and hearing disabilities amongst students.

In the School Health Monitor Programme, students are asked to vote for their eminently suitable and able peers who would be responsible for early identification of any disabilities amongst their classmates. Health Monitors (HM) in each class - one Monitor for every 10 children - are thus elected.

The Health Monitor programme helps to create awareness in children for early signs of illness. The students became change agents for the entire community.The State Government has since institutionalised the School Health programme.

Emergency Medicine

Training is provided for:

• Bleeding Control
• Shock Management
• Heat stroke
• Diahorrea Control and Oral Rehydration
• Fractures
• Head Injuries
• Burns, Poisoning
• Snake Bites

Warli paintings in the First-Aid Manual illustrating tre atment for diseases

Warli paintings illustrating reatment for dehydration

Warli paintings in the First-Aid Manual illustrating treatment for diseases

Zia demonstrating C-spine precautions

Over 2000 women have participated in First Aid training programmes conducted in five modules over three months by Zina Semenovskaya, a fourth year medical student of the Weil Cornell Medical School, New York, in 2007. Her efforts, using traditional folk art forms, for largely illiterate rural communities, were accepted in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

Immunisation

In collaboration with the State Health authorities Impact mobilises mothers to bring their infants, aged 0 to 2 years, for vaccination administered against all childhood diseases such as BCG, DPT, Polio, Measles and Hepatitis B. In this way Impact contributes to achieving 100% immunization.

Malnutrition prevention

Information, Education and Communication programmes. Health messages on the social factors responsible for Malnutrition are communicated through traditional (Warli) folk art - posters, wall paintings, painted earthernware pots, saris, as well as folk dances, music, street theatre and films on CDs. Topics include delay in early marriage, spacing between childbirths, exclusive breast feeding for six months, hygiene and sanitation and immunization against childhood diseases. Awareness on Government entitlements/schemes form a key part of the programme.

HB Testing

Students attending to the crop at Kitchen Garden in Betegaon, Somta Primary Health Centre, Palghar