Gain for mothers’ pain, ASHAs’ claim

BHUBANESWAR: Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Saturday announced  new welfare schemes in order to improve healthcare delivery mechanism in the State. The interventions would benefit expectant mothers, Asha workers and National Health Mission (NHM) staff.After reviewing activities of NHM with Collectors and CDMOs through video conference, Naveen said the State Government has planned several initiatives to ensure accelerated reduction of infant and maternal mortality rates. “While under the Sampurna scheme, the Government will extend financial support for transportation of pregnant women from inaccessible villages for institutional delivery, Asha Kalyan Yojana (AKY) will take care of Asha workers who will be provided incentive to perform better at community level,” he said.

The Government has decided to reimburse transportation cost of `1,000 to ferry expectant mothers from their hard to reach villages. The reimbursement would include expenditure incurred towards payment to stretcher bearers or any other means used to reach vehicle point or nearby public health facility.  
The amount will be paid to the beneficiary’s account along with Janani Suraksha Yojana payment through direct benefit transfer. About 60,000 women in 7,853 villages are expected to benefit under the scheme annually for which `6 crore will be spent.  

The welfare scheme for Asha workers, who are an integral part of the system, will benefit 47,000 Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) functioning in the State. Each Asha worker will get minimum incentive of `1,000 per month and one time honorarium of `10,000 after they retire at 60. In case of death or permanent disability due to any cause, a worker will get ` one lakh and upto `50,000 for partial disability.

Financial support will also be extended to Asha workers to enable them to complete education till Class X. More than `56 crore will be spent for the AKY. Under the NHM employees’ welfare fund, the Government will provide financial assistance to over 15,000 contractual staff and their family members. The assistance includes one time assured compensation upto `6 lakh for death or permanent disability, upto `2.5 lakh for partial disability and compensation upto `3 lakh for critical health conditions. A corpus fund of ` one crore has been constituted while employee’s contribution will be `100 per annum.

“We have also planned to provide better healthcare services to patients suffering from thalassaemia, sickle cell diseases or hemophilia by opening day care centres at district headquarters hospitals. In the first phase, the 10-bed centres for haemoglobinopathy will be set up at Balasore, Kandhamal and Rourkela,” Naveen informed. The Chief Minister congratulated Health Department as Koraput district headquarters hospital became second in the country to receive national quality assurance standard certificate from the Centre. He dedicated 300 sub-centres, four mother and child health buildings, 11 PHC buildings and three PHC (urban) buildings on the occasion.