-Achieving Millennium Development Goals, India-

India forms parliamentary panel to meet MDGs : iGovernment ( 22nd October,2008)
New Delhi: A parliamentary committee comprising 30 MPs was formed on Wednesday to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals (MDG), which India aims to achieve along with the rest of the world, are met by 2015, reports IANS.

"The main aim behind formation of the Parliamentary Group on the MDGs (PG-MDGs) is to sensitise the MPs about the MDGs and the issues that plague India, and indeed the rest of the world today," Lok Sabha MP and a core member of the committee on MDGs Raman Senthil said.

"Only when they are aware, will the various government policies be influenced in the direction of realisation of the goals," Senthil said on the sidelines of a meet on MDGs in the capital on Wednesday.

In 2000, leaders of 189 countries including India signed the Millennium Declaration, agreeing to do everything in their power to end poverty. They promised to do this by achieving the MDGs, a roadmap set by the UN to end extreme poverty by 2015.

"To begin with we are launching the committee with 30 MPs including a bright and upcoming woman MP, Supriya Sule, who is the chairperson of the group. There maybe more members in the future," Senthil said.

Two handbooks were also released for the benefit of the MPs on this occasion. "The handbooks give details about the eight MDGs, what our present government programmes are doing to achieve these and recommendations about what else needs to be done," he said.

For instance, the first goal is eradication of poverty. The current policies towards this common goal include the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) and the Public Distribution System (PDS).

Policy recommendations state that NREGS should be made more mission focussed, wage payments should be made on time and transportation to the area of work and child care should be included.

To achieve the MDG of universal primary education, the policy recommendations include more public investment in education, making education a justifiable right and making it more relevant to the present times.

Besides these two, the other six MDGs are promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment, reduction of child mortality, improvement of maternal health, combating HIV/malaria and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability and development of global partnership.

HMIS for India

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Proper Health management requires the monitoring of the health status of the population, the provision of services as to the coverage and utility, drugs stocks and consumption patterns, equipment status and availability, Finances, personnel on a regular basis.India has a large population living in widespread far flung areas. Because of  this, Data collection and streamlining of public health services has always been a very tough task.

http://www.nrhm-mis.nic.in/ 

The Government of India has launched the Health Management Information System (HMIS) portal to convert local health data into real time useful information, management indicators and trends which could be displayed graphically in the reports.The new system envisages enhancing the information flow at various levels and providing useful and timely inputs for programme development, monitoring and midcourse interventions in the policies.

The HMIS portal captures data to be collected as per the revised HMIS formats on a web-based system at the District level so that the primary data can be easily aggregated and the information and reports flow quickly to the state head quarters and the Ministry.

The application has been developed by the Ministry in technical collaboration with iBILT Technologies who will also be providing maintenance and support to the application for the next five years.

The portal will be generating unique intelligence reports using the advanced SAS Data Warehousing platform and explore and establish new linkages and advanced analysis for policy initiatives.

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`-Radio for health education-

The Hindu : Kerala / Thiruvananthapuram News : Health capsules on the air

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A major campaign utilising the mass media to disseminate health education and public health messages took off here on Monday with the launch of Radio Health, an initiative by the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM-Arogyakeralam).

Inaugurating the campaign at a function here, Health Minister P.K. Sreemathy said Radio Health would make it possible to disseminate information about the increasing incidence of lifestyle- induced diseases and the importance of health in everyday life.

She said the project, to be aired on the Ananthapuri FM platform initially, would be extended to other parts of the State soon.

NRHM Director Dinesh Arora, who participated in the function, said moves were afoot to utilise Ham radio operators for the network.

Radio Health is envisaged as a vehicle for providing information on health-related activities in the State and for giving health education to the community, especially rural women.

-No passive smoking for Indians-

INDIA BUSINESS WORLD - SUPREME COURT APPROVES SMOKING BAN IN PUBLIC PLACES

THE Supreme Court has refused to stay the Central government's notification imposing a ban on smoking in public places from October 2. A bench headed by Justice B N Agarwal, while refusing to stay the notification dated May 30, 2008, also transferred the four petitions, including one each filed by the ITC and the Indian Hotels Association, against it in the Delhi High Court.

�We are of the view that it is not a fit case for grant of interim relief. The prayer staying implementation of prohibition of smoking in public places is rejected...let transfer cases be heard on November 18", court said. The court also clarified that �no court in the country shall pass any order in derogation of this order." The Centre's plea seeking permission to implement a ban on smoking in public places from October 2�the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi�was part of an application seeking transfer of all the petitions, challenging the ban on smoking in private offices, pending before various high courts. Additional Solicitor Generals Gopal Subramanium and Mohan Prasaran, on behalf of the centre, sought stay on Madras high court order. The high court, in its interim order, had put on hold the centre�s law banning smoking in public places. The people would suffer immensely and an irreparable loss and injury would be caused in case the notification was not implemented, said government's law officer. "The Act would not only discourage smoking in public places but would curtail passive smoking, which is the cause of lung cancer...around one billion deaths are reported every year due to smoking," said centre's law officers. Supporting him, Indra Jaisingh, appearing for health organisations, said that the petitioners should comply with the ban as such rules were being followed all over the world in public interest. However, the tobacco manufacturers and hoteliers earlier strongly opposed the notification saying such a ban on smoking at workplace was unjustified as it would include private offices. Stating that "the Rules go way beyond the Act," senior counsel Harish Salve, appearing for ITC, said that the hotels were already complying with the earlier rules that made it mandatory for the hotels, having a seating capacity of 30 or more, should have separate smoking zones. While partially supporting the ban, Salve said that the petitioners don't have any objection to such ban but the same should be applied discreetly. They alleged that the notification made no distinction between private space and public space and the �Inspector Raj� is what that may create the problem. However, he objected to the enforcement of such ban in private offices like that of lawyers, architects, private clinics, etc and the imposition of fine on persons in charge of these offices. Pointing out that the present Rules amounted to "Inspector Raj,, Salve said that now the hotels and restaurants cannot have any service in the smoking area. "Such place without any service can�t function as a restaurant. No ashtray (can be provided) or a candle can be lit in a restaurant," he added. When the court pointed out that why it took petitioners so much time to approach the court against the ban, Salve said that the petitioners had made various representations to the government and had received a reply only on September 22. �We were trying to evolve a method by which we are able to resolve the problem rather than fighting in court,� The ITC counsel said. Telling the court about the places where such a ban would be imposed, he said that not only work places, shopping malls, cinema halls, airports, hotels and restaurants�which have public access�will have to abide by the notification but a public place would also include open space surrounding such premises such as refreshment rooms, discotheques, canteen etc. It also says that smoking areas or spaces should be used only for the purpose of smoking and that too, at the entrance or exits and no other service shall be allowed. The notification also stipulates that the owner, proprietor, manager, supervisor or incharge of the affairs of a public place shall ensure that no person smokes in the public place and no ashtrays, match boxes, lighters or any other thing designed to facilitate smoking should be kept. Besides, if the owner or any incharge or authorised officer of a public place fails to act on the report of such violation, he shall be liable to pay fine.

- Hindi video for sanitation-

A hindi language video to promote hand washing.

New tools in public health

New tool to analyse maternal mortality in India : iGovernment

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has unveiled a new tool that is designed to help health-care experts, policymakers and local communities across India understand the root causes of its high rates of maternal mortality.

The tool—Maternal and Perinatal Death Inquiry and Response (MAPEDIR)—has collected data and analysed the cases of some 1,600 women across six states within India to show the underlying medical and social reasons behind maternal deaths, a Unicef release said.

An estimated 80,000 Indian women, either pregnant or new mothers, die each year from preventable causes, including haemorrhage, eclampsia, sepsis and anaemia, according to MAPEDIR.

Haemorrhage after delivery is the most common cause of death, the new tool pointed out.

Many other deaths go unrecorded because they occur in the anonymity of a women's homes or when the woman is on the way to seek help at a medical facility. In total, an average of 301 women die annually for every one lakh live births across India.

Chris Hirabayashi, the Deputy Director of Unicef's programmes in India, said the agency was working with health authorities in selected districts in the six states—Bihar, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Rajasthan and West Bengal—to promote surveillance as a crucial strategy to cut both maternal and child mortality.

"The tragic reality is that too often maternal deaths are not visible. They don't leave any trace behind, and their deaths are not accounted for," Hirabayashi said

"If India is to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of slashing maternal mortality figures by three quarters by 2015, it must tackle critical social and economic factors, such as the low status of women, the poor understanding of many families about health care, the cost of such care, and also the low standard of roads and other forms of transport," Unicef said.

Last month a broader UNICEF report found that at least five women die unnecessarily around the world each year because of complications from pregnancy or childbirth, with the vast majority occurring in the developing world.

MAPEDIR is being funded by the United Kingdom's Department of International Development, and Unicef is providing technical support to the initiative.
—iGovernment Bureau

Mistakes that kill !

AdelaideNow... Seven die from health system 'mistakes'

SEVEN people have died and dozens more have been left disabled or traumatised by mistakes within the health system, a survey has found.

A consumer watchdog group's snapshot of the public and private health systems also found only six in 10 people affected had filed official complaints, with people citing a fear of retribution and a lack of trust in the system as reasons for staying silent.

Of those surveyed by Health Rights and Community Action, few complainants received apologies and only one respondent felt the system had subsequently changed.

HRCA spokeswoman Pam Moore said the results pointed to the need for an urgent overhaul of complaints processes, with changes to the Health and Community Services Complaints Act and the resourcing of an independent consumer advocacy organisation.

"We are of the strong belief that sweeping changes are needed to health complaints processes generally, within SA, and nationally," she said. Most of the 70 respondents were unhappy with the standard of care, communication, misdiagnoses or waiting times.

In one example, a man's aorta was fatally severed during a triple bypass and when they told his wife, she had a heart attack and died three days later. In another case a GP ignored a woman's complaint of breast pain. She had an independent scan and two days later had to have a total mastectomy.

Other respondents told of threats, bullying and abuse when they tried to complain about their treatment.

Health Minister John Hill said some of the complaints referred to were 30 years old and most were about the private sector. Private hospitals and GPs have separate complaints processes, but unhappy patients can still complain to the HCSC commissioner.

"The State Government has set up a clear process which lets people make complaints about public health services (and) we established the HCSC commissioner to investigate complaints about all health and community services - private and public," he said.

What are health rights?

A short power point presentation by me trying to explain the basic concepts of health rights.

Uploaded on authorSTREAM by drneelesh

Health rights unit launched

Health rights unit launched
Tuesday, 30th September, 2008
By Conan Businge THE Uganda Human Rights Commission (UHRC) has set up an office to sensitise and offer legal aid to citizens whose rights to health are abused. UHRC launched the health rights unit on Monday at its head office in Kampala. “The right to health should not be understood as the right to be healthy. It simply contains both freedoms and entitlements to health. The freedom includes the right to control one’s health and body, including sexual and reproductive issues,” an official said. It also includes the right to conditions vital to being healthy, she added. The unit has been operational since 2006. It is funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), under its country programme, Action Plan. According to the UHRC chairperson, Margaret Sekaggya, one has a right to be free from torture, non-consensual medical treatment and experimentation. “This right stipulates that every human being is entitled to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health conducive to living a life of dignity,” Sekaggya explained. She was flanked by Sam Ibanda of UNDP and the assistant commissioner for planning in the ministry of health, Dr. John Bagambisa. The right to health is contained in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights promulgated in 1948. Bagambisa said the unit would help “people realise what they are entitled to in the health units and empower them to demand for the services.” He added that they were planning to secure $100m (about sh1.7b) to support the health sector next year.