|
|
|
|
|
|||
|
 
The Asianage Female healthcare in Bihar, thanks to NGO Patna, Nov. 29: Women in Bihar suffering from reproductive problems find it takes a very long for their concerns to be addressed. How does one get to a government hospital by road when mostly there are no roads? Does the government-run health centre exist? Where does one get the money for the private practitioner who may be a quack? The 38 Surya Clinics spread across Bihar, which work in the field of female reproductive health and which are being run by Janani, an NGO, are doing what the Bihar government has failed to do in all these years: offering reproductive healthcare to women at a price. In government hospitals, one is supposed to get money when one gets a sterilisation operation done. But in rural Bihar, people would rather stay away from freebies as infrastructure is non existent. "I think they (government health centres) pay in the Rs 150-250 range for every sterilisation operation. The wards are not clean and neither are medicines given. For medication, the patient has to not only part with the token amount, but also spend some more," said Mr Kumar Yadav, a resident of Mohua in Vaishali district near Patna. The services offered at Surya clinics include tubectomy, MTP, delivery, vasectomy, hysterectomy and fibro adenoma of the breast. With one main nodal Surya Clinic in Patna, the NGO has partnered with private doctors to open the remaining 37 franchisee clinics all over the state. The clinics may be nursing homes but they sell ‘Surya’ services at a predecided price. They also need to pay a membership fee that the NGO uses for creating awareness in the interiors. The programme lacks government acknowledgement due to which no HIV/AIDS preventive activity gets done with the women who visit the clinic. UNAIDS, in its report released last week, has talked about the increasing spread of HIV among women because of their partners when the women themselves do not indulge in risky behaviour. Also, so-called Titli centres have been set up that sell condoms and other contraceptive and double up as counselling centres for women. Women are referred to the Surya Clinics through the Titli centres. Besides, chemists also sell ‘Surya’ condoms and other contraceptive."A lot is possible to improve healthcare in Bihar. There is enough money. Funds, in fact, are left unutilised," said Mr Gopi Gopalakrishnan, programme director, Janani. He is aiming at tapping the huge private sector resources in the state. "The NGO sector in India accounts for 0.7 per cent of healthcare and even less in family planning. In Bihar it is 0.3 per cent," he said. In Bihar, it works out to 12 million shops, 450,000 doctors and 1.25 million rural practioners. |
|||||||||||||||||||
 |
