GUWAHATI, Feb 16 � Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today inaugurated an ambitious village health outreach programme 'Sanjeevani' undertaken under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Assam with the support of the private sector Health Management and Research Institute.
He expressed the hope that the programme would help improving the health scenario, by facilitating early detection of the diseases, with its thrust on the non-communicable and lifestyle-related ones, in the remote areas of the State.
The Chief Minister also laid stress on generating public awareness to improve the health scenario. Moreover, he said, the people of the State need to change their concepts and use the available man power in the health care sector properly.
The Chief Minister also released the Maternal Health Toolkit, Assam prepared jointly by the NRHM and the UNICEF to provide quality maternal health services in the health facilities.
Addressing the function, Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that 'Sanjeevani' is being introduced throughout the State with 80 mobile health units (MHUs) in the first phase to cover 3,800 villages. For the next year, a target to cover 10,000 villages under the programme has been fixed, he said.
The services being offered under the programme include early identification, screening, referral, follow-up and free medicines for effective disease management. The MHUs equipped with a laptop loaded with the VHOP application software, biometric scanner, webcam, basic diagnostic equipment etc, would help conducting on-the-spot random blood sugar, urine albumin tests, HB estimation, among others, he said.
Screening of the chronic diseases like diabetes, hypertension, defective vision, asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and epilepsy could also be done by the MHUs, each of which will be manned by a Registration and Measurement officer, Lab Technician, ANM and Pharmacist, said the Health Minister.
