India
SARTHI is designed to reach out to Indias tribal people, who are the most vulnerable in terms of health outcomes, roughly estimated to be 40 million.
Scaling
1-3 years
Last update: October 05, 2023
Tribal people in India have poorer health outcomes compared to other groups. On an average, they die 10 years earlier than non-tribal people in the country. Mothers and children are even more vulnerable and as per estimates, a tribal woman is twice as likely to die during pregnancy and childbirth as compared to the rest of the population. Similarly, a tribal child is 1.5 times more likely to die before his/her fifth birthday compared to a non-tribal child. Tribal communities in India are geographically isolated and face barriers in terms of awareness of, access to and quality of healthcare. They are unreached by the public health system as there is 20% - 30% shortfall of government hospitals along with 82% shortfall of specialists in the tribal areas of the country. Additionally, myths, misconceptions, malpractices and limited access to health information act as barriers to health-seeking behavior. Strengthening health systems along with ensuring demand for services from the community is the most influential way to address the issue. India is home to one-third of the world’s tribal population. Approximately 40% of the Indian tribal population, around 40 million, live in 72 districts of India spread across the states of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Assam, Odisha, Gujarat and Maharashtra. The proposed solution will be implemented in these 72 districts. The solution will strengthen the existing public health system and result in an enhanced demand-for and access-to services.
The proposed solution presents a comprehensive approach to transform the health ecosystem in the tribal districts of India addressing both supply-side and demand-side constraints. The core elements of this approach includes setting up ‘community centers’ in remote areas to provide health and nutrition services, community outreach for last mile service delivery and simultaneous public health system strengthening. The community centers will be a hub of activities which plug-in existing service delivery gaps. Specialist services through telemedicine centers, one-on-one health and nutrition counselling, demonstration of food preservation techniques during agriculturally lean periods, nutrition based livelihood models for women groups, cultivation of kitchen gardens, capacity building of self-help groups for health and nutrition reviews are just a few examples of the activities which will be conducted in the Centers. In extremely remote and hard-to-reach areas, nurse-led community outreach teams will provide last-mile primary healthcare to those currently untouched by the public health system. These community level activities will complement a series of parallel activities to address supply side challenges that include strengthening existing health facilities, optimal resource utilization and capacity building support to the healthcare system. ICT will be leveraged to track programmatic progress; complemented by third party evaluation across the project period. The program will have both macro level and micro level impact, with a special focus on the 40% of tribal Indian population currently residing in these areas. Ending preventable maternal, neonatal and under five child deaths will be the primary objective of the program.
