After months of negotiating the bureaucratic maze of India; acquiring form after form and signature after signature; tireless hours spent on renovation and beautification by our dedicated staff and volunteers, RMF and its partner, Jeevan Jyoti Health Service Society, who operate Jeevan Jyoti Hospital, proudly inaugurated its Nutritional Rehabilitation Center (NRC) in partnership with the state government of Madhya Pradesh.
After the requisite ribbon cutting and speech by the district’s Chief Medical Officer, we immediately admitted our first 12 patients, who had been waiting (while being looked after by our staff) for hours to be officially admitted.
This Public-Private Partnership (NRC) is one of a handful of its kind in all of India. The Government of Madhya Pradesh will provide the funding while RMF and JJHSS provide the facilities, the staff, and technical support for the difficult task of treating patients with Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM).
With the capacity to treat 20 children at a time, this center will offer round the clock care to children suffering from the worst forms of malnutrition. The NRC provides the serious patients identified with a 14 day treatment consisting of regular feeding with micronutrient rich food and required antibiotics, de-worming, and treatment of underlying illnesses. Upon referral, the child’s height and weight are measured, a Mid-Upper Arm Circumference Test is performed, and if SAM is present, the child is admitted.
Cases of SAM in Madhya Pradesh are treated with two types of therapeutic food depending on the severity and complications of their condition, and are eased back on to a normal diet by receiving specific amounts of formula, based on weight, during regular feedings every two hours. We have a resident pediatrician regularly assessing the children and providing treatment for any complications, such as respiratory infections, diarrhea, or other illnesses.
Our dedicated staff of one pediatrician, 3 nurses, 3 caretakers, a cook, and a feeding demonstrator, will not only cater to the medical needs of these acute patients, mostly under the age of 5, but will also work closely with the mothers to address the root causes of malnutrition in their child. The mother’s will stay with their child at our center for the course of their treatment and recovery – usually 14-21 days.
Our staff will take full advantage of this time by offering mothers one on one and group counseling and training on important nutritional issues such as breastfeeding, supplementary feeding, local recipes, sanitation, hygiene, and other topics the women want to learn.
Our goal is that each child treated at our center not only recovers from SAM, but also stays well.
The opening of Jeevan Jyoti’s NRC closes the circle of the Malnutrition Eradication program. At the field level, we work in 100 villages in the area, have already identified hundreds of children in need of treatment, have provided referrals to other facilities in the area, and followed up with children who have already received treatment.
Now, our Community Nutrition Educators have a closer facility that they can work with, can familiarize themselves with the treatment procedures at the NRC to better explain the services in the field, and will participate more closely in the follow ups with treated children to prevent relapse.
While all of our activities are linked closely with government practices already in place, we hope to go a step beyond current activities and to set a standard of excellence that will be adopted by other NRCs in the state.
The opening of the doors of this facility was a real victory for the children of Jhabua and RMF’s staff. Through the hard work of everyone, twelve children started on the road back to health today.
For more information on how SAM is treated in the NRCs in MP and to learn about opportunities to contribute to this program, please visit our website for more information: www.realmedicinefoundation.org
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Absentee blogger - with good reason!
It has been a hectic past few months since I last posted. We hired, trained and re-trained the staff, finished our exhaustive baseline survey across 500 villages, measuring over 60,000 children, finding and counseling thousands of malnourished children and referring over 100 children to NRCs for treatment. We also inaugurated and admitted our first patients into one of the first Public Private Partnership Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers in the state. Now that we've got the system set up, the intervention really begins. I promise to blog more regularly on our operational experiences in combatting malnutrition at the community level.
For now, here are a few blog entries from the RMF website on what we've been up to.
For now, here are a few blog entries from the RMF website on what we've been up to.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Jhabua malnutrition in the news again
http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/madhya-pradesh-jhabuas-register-of-death-18247.php
We're finding the same thing at anganwadi centers across the district. In a recent survey in one village, we found 50% malnutrition with 18% severe acute malnutrition - a SAM rate 54% higher than the national average of 3%
We're finding the same thing at anganwadi centers across the district. In a recent survey in one village, we found 50% malnutrition with 18% severe acute malnutrition - a SAM rate 54% higher than the national average of 3%
Saturday, March 20, 2010
The National Food Securities Act
Great background article on the National Food Securities Act:
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/UPA-gets-food-security-bill-off-the-block/articleshow/5699603.cms
The Act, which will guarantee BPL families foodgrains at extremely discounted rates, will be a national program on par with NREGA and the Mid-Day Meal scheme, and, similarly, will be implemented at the state level.
This Act is a great step in the right direction to promoting greater food security in India, but as always, the devil is in the details. I'm waiting to see the fine print and how this will translate into action - given the deep corruption in the existing PDS system.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/UPA-gets-food-security-bill-off-the-block/articleshow/5699603.cms
The Act, which will guarantee BPL families foodgrains at extremely discounted rates, will be a national program on par with NREGA and the Mid-Day Meal scheme, and, similarly, will be implemented at the state level.
This Act is a great step in the right direction to promoting greater food security in India, but as always, the devil is in the details. I'm waiting to see the fine print and how this will translate into action - given the deep corruption in the existing PDS system.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Barwani - NGOs galour
Barwani has the luck, or the curse, of having one of the highest rates of NGOs per capita in the state. There are hundreds of NGOs, with hundreds of missions and a fleet of professional NGO staff milling about the district. With this much activity on would think that basic development indicators should be on the rise.
Not exactly.
Our first meeting, like in every other district, was with the District Collector, the senior most official in the district who looks after all programs. He was enthusiastic to hear that we’re going to be starting work on nutrition in his district since he considers malnutrition is a serious and underestimated problem. He told us about an internal district government survey in which they determined that malnutrition is at least 10 times what is being reported. This is the first time I’ve heard of a district conducting this type of internal nutrition analysis and while we couldn’t get our hands on this report, I’m ready to believe the Collector’s opinion and suggestions on where to work in Barwani – Parti block.
At the same time the Collector was friendly and encouraging towards us, he was also quite frank: “Go ahead and start your work in our district, and next time you visit this office make sure you can bring some results from your work on the ground.” This Collector must receive dozens of requests from NGOs a day – for funding, signatures, appearances, etc – but probably doesn’t see many deliver. I hope we can.
Out of the many NGOs in the area local contacts told us that many are radical entities associated political parties or social groups. Others are just NGOs on paper. We did however find a few NGOs doing great work in the area. Swasthay Vardihni is working in empowering communities, providing innovative microinsurance schemes, and advocating for the elderly. One of their dedicated staff members also runs a school for tribal children in Parti block, the most remote area of the district. KDSS’ local arm, ASHA Gram, is also active here, supporting some long standing livelihood programs and running large scale medical camps and facilities throughout the district. While there are other NGOs like these doing great work in the district, no one is working in malnutrition.
Our NGO friends helped guide us to choose underserved villages with high rates of malnutrition to begin our intervention. The eastern half of Barwani is doing fairly well according to most local accounts. There is a major highway running through this area that connects the district easily with Bhopal, Nagpur, and Mumbai. This connectivity means not only ease in getting goods to market, but also that business and industry has developed along this convenient route and all the economies that these small scale ventures can bring. We therefore, decided to focus our intervention in the most remote area of the district, Parti block, where access is extremely limited. An estimated 60% of the block is inaccessible by road and its villages quite spread out and remote. The other 40% are connected fairly well to the one road in the block.
Given the remoteness of Parti block we again decided to plan our intervention around the availability of local staff. With the help of our local NGO friends, we were able to recruit over 30 handpicked women for interviews. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of education amongst many of the tribal women from remote parts of Parti and was touched by their desire to continue working in their villages despite their higher level of education. In a block with many logistical obstacles, we were able to quickly assemble a team I’m excited to work with.
Not exactly.
Our first meeting, like in every other district, was with the District Collector, the senior most official in the district who looks after all programs. He was enthusiastic to hear that we’re going to be starting work on nutrition in his district since he considers malnutrition is a serious and underestimated problem. He told us about an internal district government survey in which they determined that malnutrition is at least 10 times what is being reported. This is the first time I’ve heard of a district conducting this type of internal nutrition analysis and while we couldn’t get our hands on this report, I’m ready to believe the Collector’s opinion and suggestions on where to work in Barwani – Parti block.
At the same time the Collector was friendly and encouraging towards us, he was also quite frank: “Go ahead and start your work in our district, and next time you visit this office make sure you can bring some results from your work on the ground.” This Collector must receive dozens of requests from NGOs a day – for funding, signatures, appearances, etc – but probably doesn’t see many deliver. I hope we can.
Out of the many NGOs in the area local contacts told us that many are radical entities associated political parties or social groups. Others are just NGOs on paper. We did however find a few NGOs doing great work in the area. Swasthay Vardihni is working in empowering communities, providing innovative microinsurance schemes, and advocating for the elderly. One of their dedicated staff members also runs a school for tribal children in Parti block, the most remote area of the district. KDSS’ local arm, ASHA Gram, is also active here, supporting some long standing livelihood programs and running large scale medical camps and facilities throughout the district. While there are other NGOs like these doing great work in the district, no one is working in malnutrition.
Our NGO friends helped guide us to choose underserved villages with high rates of malnutrition to begin our intervention. The eastern half of Barwani is doing fairly well according to most local accounts. There is a major highway running through this area that connects the district easily with Bhopal, Nagpur, and Mumbai. This connectivity means not only ease in getting goods to market, but also that business and industry has developed along this convenient route and all the economies that these small scale ventures can bring. We therefore, decided to focus our intervention in the most remote area of the district, Parti block, where access is extremely limited. An estimated 60% of the block is inaccessible by road and its villages quite spread out and remote. The other 40% are connected fairly well to the one road in the block.
Given the remoteness of Parti block we again decided to plan our intervention around the availability of local staff. With the help of our local NGO friends, we were able to recruit over 30 handpicked women for interviews. I was pleasantly surprised by the level of education amongst many of the tribal women from remote parts of Parti and was touched by their desire to continue working in their villages despite their higher level of education. In a block with many logistical obstacles, we were able to quickly assemble a team I’m excited to work with.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Khargone and Khandwa - the difference institutions make
Driving from Khandwa to neighboring Khargone its hard to tell where one district stops and another begins. We drove through Pandhana block of Khandwa, another rural and malnourished district, where on our field visits, locals had just enough contact with the government medical system not to trust it. Pandhana's population, a mix between scheduled tribes and schedules castes, are the same people as those across the boarder in Zhirnya block of Khargone, the block with reportedly the highest malnutrition in the district.
We saw a more subtle, yet the most crucial difference between the two districts however, at a town on the border. At the first town in Zhirnya we stopped to ask two woman at a bus stop where the anganwadi center was. One woman turned out to be the anganwadi herself and another the block supervisor. The anganwadi supervisor actually out on a field visit! This is something for the books! While we still found 2 SAM children in a hamlet of the village during a rapid assessment with the staff, the fact that they were at least active was encouraging.
In Khargone we were met by both the Chief Medical Officer and the District Program Officer for Women and Child Development, the two senior officers in charge of malnourished children, who in many districts are cordial at best. Here is Khargone these would-be mortal enemies were friendly and courteous. I attended a coordination meeting, called by the Health Department, but attended by block officers from both departments, where they walked through programs one by one, debating problems, highlighting concerns, and working towards mutually agreed upon solutions. Again, does not sound revolutionary, but this is the first time I've seen cooperation amongst the two departments to this degree at any level of government.
The level of cooperation we received was so great that we became a bit suspicious. The District medical coordinator actually prepared us a clustered list of the villages we should work in in the two blocks with the highest malnutrition, Zhirnya and Berhampura blocks. This was too good to be true. In Khandwa WCD prepared a similar list for us, and when we went to check it out, it turned out the villages on this list are those by the road, with access to health facilities, good farming, low rates of malnutrition and some of them even non-existent. We went out by ourselves to check a random selection of Khargone Health Department's "malnutrition list" and were pleasantly surprised that they are sending us to the right locations (not pleasantly surprised that there is tons of malnutrition in this area, but pleasantly surprised they're making our job easier to get to these places). We also consulted with the only NGOs in the area, Lepra Society and Khandwa Diocean Service Society, and they concurred that these were the villages neglected by government and NGO services and in dire need of a malnutrition intervention.
Not only did the Health Department provide us with a list of villages, but they also helped us line up interviews with some great staff members. Khargone has a University offering a Masters in Social Work program so there are many local men and women with a high degree of education who are also interested in social work in their home district. While in other districts we cannot afford MSWs as staff members, in Khargone we found them willing to work for us in order to gain experience with an NGO in their home district (here being one of the only NGOs has its benefits).
Khargone still has a large malnutrition problem, but the difference here as opposed to other districts, is that the district administration is willing to recognize the problem and address it head on, bringing in partners to help them in this process.
We saw a more subtle, yet the most crucial difference between the two districts however, at a town on the border. At the first town in Zhirnya we stopped to ask two woman at a bus stop where the anganwadi center was. One woman turned out to be the anganwadi herself and another the block supervisor. The anganwadi supervisor actually out on a field visit! This is something for the books! While we still found 2 SAM children in a hamlet of the village during a rapid assessment with the staff, the fact that they were at least active was encouraging.
In Khargone we were met by both the Chief Medical Officer and the District Program Officer for Women and Child Development, the two senior officers in charge of malnourished children, who in many districts are cordial at best. Here is Khargone these would-be mortal enemies were friendly and courteous. I attended a coordination meeting, called by the Health Department, but attended by block officers from both departments, where they walked through programs one by one, debating problems, highlighting concerns, and working towards mutually agreed upon solutions. Again, does not sound revolutionary, but this is the first time I've seen cooperation amongst the two departments to this degree at any level of government.
The level of cooperation we received was so great that we became a bit suspicious. The District medical coordinator actually prepared us a clustered list of the villages we should work in in the two blocks with the highest malnutrition, Zhirnya and Berhampura blocks. This was too good to be true. In Khandwa WCD prepared a similar list for us, and when we went to check it out, it turned out the villages on this list are those by the road, with access to health facilities, good farming, low rates of malnutrition and some of them even non-existent. We went out by ourselves to check a random selection of Khargone Health Department's "malnutrition list" and were pleasantly surprised that they are sending us to the right locations (not pleasantly surprised that there is tons of malnutrition in this area, but pleasantly surprised they're making our job easier to get to these places). We also consulted with the only NGOs in the area, Lepra Society and Khandwa Diocean Service Society, and they concurred that these were the villages neglected by government and NGO services and in dire need of a malnutrition intervention.
Not only did the Health Department provide us with a list of villages, but they also helped us line up interviews with some great staff members. Khargone has a University offering a Masters in Social Work program so there are many local men and women with a high degree of education who are also interested in social work in their home district. While in other districts we cannot afford MSWs as staff members, in Khargone we found them willing to work for us in order to gain experience with an NGO in their home district (here being one of the only NGOs has its benefits).
Khargone still has a large malnutrition problem, but the difference here as opposed to other districts, is that the district administration is willing to recognize the problem and address it head on, bringing in partners to help them in this process.
Kalwa - Second try
A week after our first failed attempt at hiring in Khandwa we returned to Khandwa with a new strategy. We ditched our jeep in the city and jumped on motorcycles with one of our new friends, an accountant with a heart of gold who lived in Kalwa for years and who still has deep ties to the community.
Kalwa is a spectacularly beautiful backdrop to the abject poverty it holds. Rolling hills, thick forests, and whimsical rivers surround villages ignored by development, struggling to match crop yields with the rising prices of foods, and with limited connectivity to markets, schools, and hospitals. Off the road, the scenery gets more spectacular and the malnutrition more severe.
Our plan for Kalwa is to choose our villages based on the good workers we can find. We’re requiring basic literacy – enough to fill out simplified reporting formats – and the charisma and communication skills to carry our messages. We’re going to hire women from larger villages (still pretty remote) who will cover the more rural villages within reach of their village. The larger villages are where we were able to find a handful of literate women and are usually located in the center of a cluster of smaller villages (small is still 1000 people). We’ll provide used bicycles to the Kalwa staff so that they can cover the substantial, but usually flat, distances between villages (we’ll call it a green initiative!).
By spending the day stopping through larger villages in the middle of rural ones, following contacts and hunting down leads we were able to find 5 staff members to cover almost 50 villages in the most remote areas of Kalwa. While many people said we wouldn’t be able to find women willing to cover more than a few villages, our new staff happily gave us a list of 10+ villages within a 10km radius of their village that they would cover.
We still need to do one more swoop of Khandwa to find the rest of our staff there, but we’re confident that this cluster approach will yield effective staff and a sustainable model.
Kalwa is a spectacularly beautiful backdrop to the abject poverty it holds. Rolling hills, thick forests, and whimsical rivers surround villages ignored by development, struggling to match crop yields with the rising prices of foods, and with limited connectivity to markets, schools, and hospitals. Off the road, the scenery gets more spectacular and the malnutrition more severe.
Our plan for Kalwa is to choose our villages based on the good workers we can find. We’re requiring basic literacy – enough to fill out simplified reporting formats – and the charisma and communication skills to carry our messages. We’re going to hire women from larger villages (still pretty remote) who will cover the more rural villages within reach of their village. The larger villages are where we were able to find a handful of literate women and are usually located in the center of a cluster of smaller villages (small is still 1000 people). We’ll provide used bicycles to the Kalwa staff so that they can cover the substantial, but usually flat, distances between villages (we’ll call it a green initiative!).
By spending the day stopping through larger villages in the middle of rural ones, following contacts and hunting down leads we were able to find 5 staff members to cover almost 50 villages in the most remote areas of Kalwa. While many people said we wouldn’t be able to find women willing to cover more than a few villages, our new staff happily gave us a list of 10+ villages within a 10km radius of their village that they would cover.
We still need to do one more swoop of Khandwa to find the rest of our staff there, but we’re confident that this cluster approach will yield effective staff and a sustainable model.
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