Haryana sets village health committees into motion

Chandigarh, Feb 12 (UNI) The Haryana Health Department has operationalised 5086 Village Health Sanitation Committees (VHSC) so as to bridge the gap between demand and supply of quality and timely health care services and to strengthen the decentralised health planning.

While stating this today, Haryana Commissioner and Secretary Health, Mrs Navraj Sandhu said these committees have been operationalised by giving a united grant of Rs 10,000 each. The bank account of each such committee was being operated jointly by Sarpanch and Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) or Anganwari Worker (AWW), she added.

With a view to strengthening health services at village level, active inclusion of vulnerable groups in planning process would lead to solution finding approach and improvement in status of health of the community, Mrs Sandhu said.

While referring to the role and responsibilities of members of the committees, she said the VHSC would maintain a record of births and deaths in the village and regularly update the resources like hand-pumps, urinals, public health facilities, number of private doctors or clinics, schools and places of worship in the village.

These committees would also maintain a record of beneficiaries as well as the kind of health and integrated child development services required.

Mrs Sandhu said these committees would also gather all mothers and eligible children for vaccination and health check-ups at one place in the village during the visit of the Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM). The committees would also monitor the visits of the ANM and ensure that her services have been extended to the target population.

Monthly meetings would also be held to review and update the progress of the Village Health Improvement Plan.

She also said after getting information about needs of the people at the village level, district action plans have been prepared for nine districts and the process was on to formulate such plans for the remaining 11 districts of Haryana. Such a planning, aimed at ensuring that the benefit of the schemes must percolate to the grass-root level and benefit the needy.

The program also aimed at establishing a decentralised state base system of surveillance for communicable and noncommunicable diseases so that timely and effective public health action could be initiated. The targeted diseases under the program includes Malaria, Cholera, Typhoid, Tuberculosis, Measles, Polio, Plague, HIV and unusual syndromes.

Apart from this, accidents, water quality, outdoor air quality and risk factors of non communicable diseases would also be included.

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