Prabir

Friday, March 1, 2024

Rural Sensitisation Initiative

15th, 16th, 17th March 2024 Chandankiyari, Bokaro, Jharkhand This is an opportunity for young medicos to re-discover and reconnect with rural India, look outside the mainstream perspectives of health, and realize the disparity that exists within the same country!

The ‘Rural Sensitisation Initiative’ is an experiential learning during the course of a three day camp. Mainstream medical and health professionals’ education does not provide opportunities for students to experience actual contexts in which health care is practiced in rural India. There is a mismatch between the settings where education takes place, and where health work is much needed. There have been many experiments and successes across the country in the NGO sector and government settings in providing health delivery systems that engage actively with the local context. The RSI has emerged from several successful ‘Rural Sensitisation Programmes’ organised by the NGO ‘Rural Health Initiatives’ in Sittilingi, Tamil Nadu (https://tribalhealth.org/). This is first time such an initiative is being organised in northern India, and is being hosted by ‘Jan Chetna Manch, Bokaro’ (https://www.janchetnamanch.org/). You will be exposed to the work of a rural women’s health programme, see their community health work, which includes their health centre – the ‘Chetna Mahila Swasthya Kendra’, visit women’s self help groups and the women’s cooperative members. You will get the chance to talk to all levels of health workers, women’s group leaders, and other villagers to understand their lives, experiences and perspectives. Through these observations, individual and group reflections and discussions, we hope to draw out a broader map of the country’s health problems and ways of addressing them. The experience will be facilitated by a group of resource persons who have been committed to making medical education a transformative process, as well as equipping students and young doctors to be more relevant to the surrounding context. We will start with health, but we can surely move beyond and explore other horizons.

What to expect from the RURAL SENSITISATION CAMP?

Stay in a rural area for 3 days

Experience rural India first hand – its people, its dreams, its problems

Understand health care in rural areas – challenges & practices

Meet resource persons from many fields and learn from them

Make friends with others who have similar aspirations

Be part of a movement to make our country better

Feedback from participants of previous RSPs:

“An exposure like this shows us the other realities of healthcare…It showed me how little I knew about the bigger picture”

“Rural sensitisation should be made mandatory for all medical graduates. I wish I was introduced to it earlier”

Health care

In the community

Each participant will be asked to contribute Rs.1000 for simple food and basic accommodation for the three days. You will have to bear your own travel to and from the centre which is located 25 kms from Bokaro,30 kms from Purulia and 35s km from Dhanbad. There will be a maximum of 30 participants per camp.

Community based health workers

To know more about and request the application form for the ‘Rural Sensitisation Initiative’ to be conducted from 15th to 17th March 2024 in Chandankiari, Bokaro, Jharkhand contact: janchetnamanch@rediffmail.com

Women’s self help groups

For more details please contact Ranjan (9431128221 & 9661819114) or Lindsay (8084791472) In case you can’t connect leave a message – we will get back to you. We hope, such an exposure, may make you think about your role in addressing the country’s health problems.

Tuesday, June 29, 2021

Amader Mobile Haspatal

In January 2021, Dr Sarkar brought together Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samiti and MNBEI Majhihira along with Bankura Unnayani Institute of Engineering to review the feasibility of this project. After a day trip to their villages, it was decided to start with two tele-clinics, the Spokes – one in Kheria Sabar Samity and the other in Majhihira, with Amader Haspatal, Phulberia as the Hub.

A group of young volunteers from these villages were selected by the local organisations for their training as Paramedics in Amader Haspatal. This training program is expected to be completed by July 2021.

These Paramedics will operate the spokes, in consultation with the doctors in Amader Haspatal. In future, it has been decided to invite retired doctors, who can communicate in Bengali, to join this project and provide consultation from their homes. One of the basic strengths of these rural hospitals is the Principles of Rational Medicine and the use of Generic drugs, that makes the treatment at Amader Haspatal low cost and so, affordable for the villagers. Amader Haspatal is a strong proponent of another philosophy - “Nothing should be offered free of cost”. Continuing with this ideology, it has been decided that:

1. each clinic will also have a medicine sales counter from where generic medicines will be sold to the patients;

2. each patient will be charged a nominal fee, to make this project sustainable.

3. a local agency with the right type of vehicle will be engaged to provide ambulance service to the villagers, if and when necessary;

Hub & Spokes

Hub- Amader Haspatal Vill: Phulberia, P.O. Nischintapur, Chatna, Dist: Bankura, West Bengal 722136

Dr Pijus K Sarkar 9433263277 & Dr. Prabir Chatterjee 9433310060

Spoke 1- Paschim Banga Kheria Sabar Kalyan Samiti Vill& P.O: Rajnowagarh, Dist: Purulia, West Bengal 723128

Prashanta Rakshit 9732114569 & Dr. Sangita Nair 8348356972

Spoke 2- Majhihira National Basic Education Institute Manbazar-I Dist: Puruliya West Bengal 723128

Prasad Dasgupta 8016909727

Technical Advisors

Bankura Unnayani Institute of Engineering Subhankar Nagar, Pohabagan, Dist: Bankura, West Bengal 722146 Sasanka Datta 9474642082

Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, West Bengal, 721302

Jayanta Mukhopadhyay 97326 16257 (http://cse.iitkgp.ac.in/?home.html)

Thanks to Tapas Basu for the text and inputs

More Links

Amader Haspatal in 2009

Manbazar 2

Boro

Village Info Boro

Manbazar I

Wikipedia Manbazar_I

Majhihira

Swasthya Maps

Bandwan