| PRIMARY
HEALTH CARE
Since
its foundation, WATCH has been active
in organizing women through health and
sanitation activities. These activities
aim at creating an alternative health
care system where local people are involved
in the planning and implementation of
services. This increases their knowledge,
participation and self-reliance in dealing
with health and sanitation related problems.
Primary
Health Care Clinic:
Three clinics, one in each field site,
have been established to provide basic
health services. Each clinic is managed
by the Women's Health Management Group
in that area and staffed by a trained
health assistant and liaison people currently
employed by WATCH.
Besides
basic health services, the clinics provide
a range of other health related services.
The Maternal and Child Health Program
offers pre-natal and post-natal care as
well as immunization services. Many times
the latter are provided with the cooperation
of the local government health institution.
WATCH helps the clinics operate a de-worming
camp every six months and has seen vast
improvements in the health of children
and their rate of weight gain. The HIV/AIDS/STD
component is not isolated from the public
health services package, since awareness
raising activities are conducted regularly
at the clinic and community camps.
Although
the primary purpose of the health care
clinics is to provide quality basic health
care, the health activities have also
been an effective way of enabling rural
women to get organized. Health facilitators
and Liaison persons frequently visit the
community to encourage personal hygiene
and sanitation. They also offer advice
on primary health care, family planning
and nutrition and help people access locally
available health resources. After observing
the work being done by health facilitators
local women took the initiative to form
groups themselves whose task was to address
health related issues within the community.
They elected leaders, defined objectives
and established rules through a process
of consensus. Each of these groups meets
once a month to discuss topics like sanitation,
vegetable gardening, cooking and feeding
practices, building toilets, distribution
of family planning devices, local issues
and problems etc.
Through
the leadership of these women's groups
and with the technical/financial support
of WATCH, a series projects have been
initiated such as providing clean drinking
water and starting their own savings funds.
In Okhaldhunga, WATCH has been helping
the women find out about local medicinal
herbs and they have been gathering them
from their forests. This saves money,
provides a little income for the women
gatherers, and keeps the area cleaner
because there is less garbage.
Women
Health Volunteers:
Women
Health Volunteers are village women who
have been trained to offer basic health
services like first aid and health advice.
WATCH provides them with a 5 day long
course in First Aid as well as a First
Aid Kit Box with simple medicines.. In
all 3 areas regular monthly follow ups
and in-service training is conducted.
During the follow up course Women Health
Volunteers report on problems and issues
they have encountered, and learn new things.
Currently the health volunteers able to
use simple medicines like cetamol, anti-emetics,
and antihelmenthics.
Health
Management Groups:
In
Chhaimale and Okhaldhunga, Women's Health
Management Groups have been set up to
administer primary health care services
to their local communities. A representative
from each group is elected to the Health
Group Committee. The committee makes policy
on primary health care services, sanitation,
and awareness raising activities, and
also shares ideas and information among
members. In the Rupandehi district, the
Women's Health Management Groups have
been officially launched but are still
in the formation stages.
Collection
of Community Funds:
The
Women's Health Management Groups charge
a nominal fee for their services. There
is a monthly fee for health services and
fees for medicine, but the clinics provide
free services and medicine to especially
poor people. These fees go into the community
fund.
WATCH feels that it will be able to hand
over the primary health care activities
to the Women's Health Management Groups
and Committees in 2-3 years
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