For a robust childcare mechanism

Guwahati, Aug. 18: Dispur has decided to adopt the Bhutan model of healthcare by engaging rural health practitioners more extensively to bring down infant and maternal mortality rates in remote areas of the state.

Health and family welfare minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who visited Bhutan recently with chief minister Tarun Gogoi, told The Telegraph that he was impressed with the way the neighbouring country was using “health assistants” to cure and prevent common ailments in inaccessible areas to make up for shortage of doctors.

The Assam ministers had gone to Bhutan to attend an international conference on the country’s policy on Gross National Happiness.

Decreed by former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the policy is an attempt to reflect the true quality of life in a holistic manner.

Sarma said the Bhutan health assistants are not doctors but know the basic treatment of common ailments. They visit remote areas in the country to ensure safe delivery, proper nutrition of the mother and child and immunisation, thereby preventing infant and maternal deaths.

“When I spoke to government officials and health workers in Bhutan, they told me that the health assistants are silent and dedicated workers and contribute to the gross real happiness in the country by helping ensure proper delivery, healthy babies by healthy mothers. These workers may not have academic degrees and qualifications. But they are considered to be real workers who have brought changes in the field of health. The same can be replicated in Assam,” the minister said.

Sarma said the rural health practitioners in Assam have dealt with 6,50,021 cases of various ailments during the past year.

Of these, only 412 are cases of institutional delivery.

“Even though the infant and maternal mortality rates have decreased in the state compared to the previous year, the health department still has a lot to do. The rate of such morality is still considered high. So we are trying to engage the rural health practitioners in providing basic healthcare tips. We are planning to experiment with the role of the rural health practitioners in arresting the infant and maternal mortality rates in tea gardens, particularly in Dibrugarh and Sivasagar districts,” Sarma said.

In 2004, Assam introduced the Assam Rural Health Regulatory Act, under which the health department started a three-year diploma course in medicine and rural healthcare to make up for shortage of doctors in villages. These diploma holders can prescribe medicines and treat patients suffering from common ailments, but cannot conduct surgeries.

The rural health practitioners are now serving in only 260 of the 2,000 health sub-centres in the state, said Sarma.

A senior gynaecologist in Gauhati Medical College and Hospital said the rural health practitioners can play a pivotal role in reducing the infant and maternal mortality rates, considering their nature of work at the grassroots level.