Community Health

SSP has made it a goal to empower women as health planners and promoters, improving the quality, efficiency and accountability of health services in both the private and public sectors. SSP Community Health programmes capitalize on the opportunity presented by health sector reforms to involve communities for the betterment of health services. SSP seeks to ensure that the demand for higher quality service is met through the informed participation of the poor.

SSP has piloted a strategy that transforms primary health centres (PHCs). The community health agenda is the focus of this plan. Trained women’s groups act as community health advocates, interact with the PHCs and report to communities and health administrators. Women demonstrate concern for community health, learn about national programmes and are trained to survey incidences of malaria and tuberculosis in the village. Today, they help educate others through collaborative efforts with local auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs), staff doctor, and women’s collectives.

Additionally, in partnership with the Zilla Parishad, SSP has trained over three hundred women leaders in the Latur district of Maharashtra. SSP also implemented a pilot effort in over a hundred villages in the Latur and Osmanabad districts to improve access to sustainable health services for SHG members and their communities through health services and health insurance products. The plan is undergoing preparations to be scaled up to another three hundred villages across Maharashtra, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

Grassroots Call for Accountability on World AIDS Day: http://www.disasterwatch.net/hiv-grassroots.htm