Health & Nutrition

The HEALTH scenario still remains a subject of concern in Sunderban area.

Frequent natural disasters along with the Covid -19 pandemic outbreak has led to bigger struggle, causing detrimental effect on the rural and urban poor. Several dimensions like the geographical and physical access to health care facilities, inadequate outreach, folk-health traditions, religious and social practices and limited financial resources have promoted to the complexities of the improved healthcare system.

The organisation’s programmes are aimed to focus towards increased access to health care facilities, improvement in general health, combating malnutrition and focussing on proportionate access to health care of the women and children.

Community Health Programme:

The Community Health Programme is an initiative towards improving the health care and living standards of the people from the remotest rural parts through community development programs and the empowerment of the villagers.

The program reaches out to Pregnant and Lactating Mothers, Adolescent Girls, and the older people of the communities by ensuring safe motherhood, addressing malnutrition from an early age, providing health care for the girls, and providing pathological and clinical services for the geriatric sections.

This is being implemented in the Mathurapur – II and Patharpratima blocks of South 24 Parganas and Kolkata districts of West Bengal.

To this date, 99.9 % of institutional delivery could be achieved through this program while reaching out to 1923 pregnant women for ante-natal care and 1089 lactating mothers for post-natal care, 100% of the newborn babies were immunized, 426 camps were conducted in the 4 model ANC camps set up in the operational areas , 204 Mothers’ Meetings took place with participation of women, 311 women were identified to be in the high-risk category and received institutional care at the Rural Health & Training Centre (RHTC) and the outreach clinics of Sabuj Sangha.

Curative treatment were provided to 157 adolescent girls with anaemia with a remarkable improvement in the haemoglobin level among 382 girls. Sanitary napkins at very subsidized cost were distributed to 4373 girls.

Our organisation reached out to 8482 patients where treatment was provided through the general OPD, indoor care services were extended to 110 patients, 1821 people availed pathological tests facilities, 229 people were benefitted with X-Ray facilities, 144 people received ECG facilities, 1082 people went through USG tests facilities, 81 people availed Spectacles/ Eye Related Services, 1814 people from the Communities availed services through Community Health Card introduced by Sabuj Sangha.

Healthcare for urban poor:

Migration is a global phenomenon governed by various factors. The most important part is the economical aspect which compels the people to migrate from the rural to urban areas. Since 2020, the pandemic along with the natural disasters like Amphan have forced a considerable population to migrate to the city of Kolkata. Owing to this, Kolkata has been facing rapid growth of unorganised population and expansion of the urban slums. Unhygienic living conditions and lack of healthcare facilities makes life more vulnerable in these parts.

Sabuj Sangha’s Project Niramoy brings expertise in the field of public health and aims to address the health issues and better access to health services for the urban poor in areas of ward no 28 of Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and at ward no 79 & 80 of Kolkata Municipal Corporation.

We organised 13 special health awareness camps on COVID-19 and Dengue, sensitized 542 adolescent girls on menstrual hygiene, adolescent reproductive sexual health and HIV AIDS and the pandemic through 31 awareness programmes, provided awareness on Primary Health Care to 572 lactating mothers and pregnant women sensitized focusing on health and lifestyle, family planning, maternal health, neonatal care and child care.

Special support with dry ration was provided to 7216 families by Sabuj Sangha who faced sudden and complete loss of livelihood and income during the lockdown.

Mobile Medical Camp:

Sabuj Sangha continues to reach out the marginalised populations in the remotest parts of west Bengal through the project on Mobile Medical Units.

Through this project, basic health care and diagnostic services are made accessible to the chronic patients diagnosed with hypertension, diabetes, diarrhoea, gastrointestinal problems, etc along with ante – natal and post – natal care for the women in the 6 tea garden in Madarihat Birpara Block & 12 villages in Alipurduar- II and Kalchini block of Alipurduar District of West Bengal.

Till date, 23770 patients have been able to access health services from 305 clinics. Among them, the MMU has majorly supported 851 women on maternal health, provided diagnostic support to 4332 patients and also referred 687 patients to government hospitals for advanced treatment.

Hospital - Swarnalata Sabuj Seva Sadan:

The Swarnalata Sabuj Seva Sadan is a registered hospital under The West Bengal Clinical Establishments (Registration, Regulation and Transparency) Act and affiliated by Health Department, Government of West Bengal. It was started by Sabuj Sangha to extend affordable healthcare support to the marginalised rural villagers in Sundarban. The hospital is equipped with both OPD and 20 bedded IPD facilities with 24×7 service facilities like labour room, operation theatre, pharmacy, pathology, USG and other diagnostic units for the patients and a dedicated treating team of doctors, nurses, paramedics and pathologists to serve any medical need and emergency arising thereof.

The hospital is located at the remote village of Nandakumarpur in Mathurapur II block of Sundarbans area of South 24 Parganas, West Bengal and thus caters the marginalised population from administrative blocks of Mathurapur II and Patharpratima. It is also linked with the various existing health schemes of the government like Swasthya Sathi, Rashtriya Bima Yojana (RSBY) etc.

Maternal and Child Health remains the prime focus of the institution along with health services for the adolescents and the senior citizens. Of late, due to the rising crisis on access to basic health care services in the rural areas, the hospital has started providing clinical care and services for the needy population as well.

The outbreak of the pandemic in the year 2020 had jeopardized the normal life of the people causing lost-lasting impact on the healthy life and well-being of all ages, one of the crucial aspirations is Sustainable Development Goal. During this period, when health care was profusely neglected all over the world, the situation equally worsened for the rural people who were already victim of remoteness, poor connectivity, inaccessibility, exposure to frequent disasters, and so on. The Swarnalata Sabuj Seva Sadan was the only saviour for the villagers at that time that continued to extend relentless services and remained at the frontline throughout for them. In such scenario, the hospital supported almost 2000 most marginalized members of the community with direct health services including testing guidance, treatment and management of Covid cases. 16 village councils from Mathurapur II, Patharpratima and Sagar blocks of South 24 Parganas availed the health services. 40 COVID isolation beds were provided, 2268 patients had visited the out-patient department during Aug ’21 to Mar ’22, out of which 329 patients were suspected COVID positive, 83 were found positive after the Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) and 45 out of them were confirmed as positive after the RTPCR method. The patients were admitted to the hospital and treated successfully. Our records show that we performed 400 Rapid Antigen Test (RAT) through outreach camps, sensitized 6022 people through 474 community level meetings, reached 208758 people through 1948 awareness sessions on Covid and vaccinated 14827 villagers during Jan ’22 to Mar ’22.