Health & Hygiene Awareness | SPARSH Hospital | HIV/AIDS Care & Support | Outreach
General Health & Hygiene Programmes
This programme aims to create awareness on health and hygiene practices among the women, adolescent girls and school children, help motivate them to use and maintain sanitation facilities at schools and their community surroundings, inculcate better hygienic practices and make the children understand the importance of keeping the school, home and village premises clean and thus reduce incidences of diseases. It also includes programme for community members such as cleanliness drives and promotion of kitchen garden in homestead. When sanitation conditions are poor, making improvements in health may have minimal impact on the community. Therefore, PRIDE strives to make a change in every aspect. In 2015-16 30 villages in Raigad were sensitized on the best practices of health and hygiene and 1200 families received kitchen garden kits to promote the idea of growing nutritious food in their backyards.
37,800 people have so far benefitted from P.R.I.D.E.’s Relief Camps in Mahad Taluka of Raigad district. Its focus areas include Safe Motherhood, Family Planning, Safe Abortion, RTI/STI, Malaria/Tuberculosis during pregnancy, HIV & AIDS knowledge for prevention, Gender discrimination and Male Participation in Child Care.
With its 45 bed rural hospital, Community Care Centre and Outreach community health care today, SPARSH has become an integral part of healthcare for Latur and Osmanabad districts.
SPARSH (Sastur Project of Action Research Service Through Hospital)
SPARSH (Sastur Project of Action Research Services through Hospital), a public-private partnership initiative is a flagship project of The PRIDE India set up in 1996 post the devastating Latur earthquake to provide quality primary healthcare to rural poor from Osmanabad and Latur districts in the Marathawada region of Maharashtra State. Today SPARSH continues to touch lives through an integrated approach of providing sustainable community health services.
PRIDE India’s 45-bedded high specialty facility SPARSH Rural hospital is recognized under the Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS), is ISO certified and accredited by the National Quality Assurance. It provides primary healthcare impacting the lives of 1,65,000 people every year. It also works extensively for support and care to people living with HIV/AIDS in 3 districts viz Latur, Nanded and Osmanabad. Besides clinical services it also has strong community initiatives on preventive health services for mother and child and elderly people which is implemented through 4 fully equipped mobile medical units reaching out to 126 underserved villages. The organization is trying to address the Sustainable Development Goals of ‘Ensuring healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.’
So far, the hospital has reached out to 318 villages in Osmanabad, Latur, Solapur & Gulbarga districts by changing the lives of17,98,329 patients to date.
Through SPARSH all essential health care services are provided which is accessible for all individuals and families in the community. The following are the services available for the patients in the hospital:
SPARSH services are mainly availed by people from Marathawada region, especially, border districts of Karnataka and Telangana.
Out Patient Care (OPD) with well-equipped examination and consultation and specialist clinic rooms
Reception and patient guide
Waiting area
Registration Counters
Separate Male Female wards
ANC & PNC Clinic
Maternity ward and well equipped labour/ delivery room
Paediatric wards and intensive neonatal care facility
Diagnostic facilities like X-Ray and pathological laboratory test.
USG Unit
Services facilities like dressing and injection room
Well-equipped operation theatre (OT)
Dental Clinic
Sputum microscopy centre (DOT centre)
I.C.T.C. (Integrated counselling and Testing Centre)
Link ART Centre
Pharmacy Medical
Blood Storage Unit
Referral Transport System
Non – Communicable Disease Control Programme
Pantry and kitchen
Computerized medical records
Ambulance Services
Well-equipped training centre
Audio – visual aids
Generator for essential services
Community / Training Centre
A community /training centre in the hospital premises serves the dual purpose of accommodating the relatives of patients coming in from long distances and carrying out various health educational and awareness programmes for these beneficiaries. The community/training centre serves as the nodal point for undertaking various community based social, welfare and development activities.
Care during all stages of pregnancy
Prenatal | Antenatal | Postnatal
Maternal and Child Health
The Maternal and Child health services are primarily aimed to reduce maternal and prenatal mortality and morbidity. SPARSH follows a continuum of care from pre- pregnancy to puerperium. We aim to ensure that every pregnancy culminates in the birth of a healthy baby and mother. In order to achieve this goal we provide general health advice for safe motherhood which includes health check up by a gynaecologist, laboratory investigations of their health status and counselling about diet & personal hygiene.
The newborn, young child is constantly in danger of contracting fatal diseases which can impair them for life. Therefore prevention, diagnosis and treatment at the early stages are very crucial. Therefore, for children below the age of 6 we detect and tackle malnutrition, promote breastfeeding and conduct immunization to prevent the child from diseases which are most prevalent among new-borns and infants. SPARSH celebrates the birth of each and every girl child born at the hospital by giving a small gift to the mother and the infant, taking a step towards breaking social taboos of favouring males.
Adolescent Reproductive Sexual Health(ARSH) programme is aimed creating awareness of sexual health among the adolescent girls in the community. Through topics ranging from menstrual health, personality development, good nutrition we ensure that the generation of tomorrow is healthy and aware.
Primary health services in 126 remote villages of Osmanabad and Latur districts at door step through 4 Mobile Medical Units (Clinical & Curative services).
Mobile Medical Units (MMU)
The Outreach Program through the Mobile Medical Units focuses on improving the health status and wellbeing of the rural poor. It aims to improve the health indicators of the remote unserved and underserved villages through not only clinical support at their doorstep but also through preventive healthcare. Its objective is to enhancing access to quality health services in these identified villages. The programme also aims to build the capacities of the government grassroots functionaries/ village animators and the communities to create more awareness on health and increase the demand for quality health services.
Since the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic, the Mobile Medical Units has furthered its aim to contain the spread of the coronavirus infection locally through its clinical and preventive measures.
The mobile medical units are a full-body bus which included a doctors chamber, laboratory, a nursing section with one bed and pharmacy chamber.
The key initiatives under the outreach programmes are:
Screening and referral of suspected COVID 19 cases to nearby facilities for test/ treatment.
Preventive and awareness activities for COVID 19 other diseases every alternate month through IEC.
Promotion of safe institutional deliveries by Anti-natal & Post-natal care and care of neonates through home visits, monthly meetings and follow-ups by village animators/ASHA’s and mobile-based voice messaging app – M-Mitra.
Special Camps on Non-Communicable Diseases for patients and tracking of the prevalence of hypertension and diabetes among population above 30 years.
Linkages with government health facilities, schemes and programmes.
Arogya Bhavan for disseminating health-related sessions in collaboration with the community.
Training & capacity building of CBO’s, Village Health committee’s and grassroots level government health functionaries including ASHA, Anganwadi teacher, village-level volunteers, ANM, MPW.
Medical support | Linkages with government scheme | Psychological support | Orphan HIV+ children | Outreach services
Care and Support for people living with HIV/AIDS (PLHIV)
PRIDE INDIA is working towards care, support and awareness for people living with HIV/AIDS since 2000. The organization has trained staff & dedicated facilities like Integrated Counselling and Testing Centre (ICTC), Community Care Centre (CCC), Anti Retoviral Therapy (ART) centre and Designated microscopic centre (DMC) under one roof. It also has a well-equipped Pathological Laboratory with four trained Lab Technicians.
To promote the concept of ‘Home Based Care’, for people living with HIV/AIDS, Community Care Centre was set up at the hospital in the year 2009 with support from NACO (National Aids Control Organization) wherein patients are admitted for 3-5 days for care and support. While in the hospital they are also counselled to cope with HIV and regain their self-esteem and confidence.
The Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) centre was also started in 2015 with the help of Maharashtra State AIDS Control Society which has strengthened the programme and services remarkably. The Outreach workers also maintain a regular follow up of these patients to ensure their adherence to ART through regular home visits. Frequent awareness programmes are also conducted by the programme team to educate and enlighten people about the disease.
The PLHIV receiving services from SPARSH find it very effective which is evident from our post assessment report. Self-Help Groups of Women living with HIV have been formed and these women are trained on different skills like tie and dye, tailoring and other craft so that they get some livelihood opportunity and this ensures their greater involvement in the programme.
As part of its outreach services for PLHIV, PRIDE India, in the year 2013, initiated a Care and Support programme with the aim of providing a safe space for these people from high risk groups across Osmanabad district. The programme focuses on improving their access to information on welfare schemes, positive counseling and required health services. In the year 2015-16, PRIDE expanded its reach to more people living with HIV/ AIDS through care and support programme two additional districts viz. Nanded and Beed of Maharahstra.
Reaching orphaned children affected with HIV:
As of 2015, an estimated 13.4 million [11.4 – 15.7 million] children worldwide had lost one or both parents to AIDS. There are 220,000 children infected by HIV/AIDS in India. It is approximated that every year 55,000 to 60,000 children are born to mothers who are HIV positive. 30% of these children are likely to be infected themselves (UNICEF,2015) Our preliminary observation through the years has shown that there are many children who are affected by HIV/AIDS, many of them are orphaned and living with ageing grandparents some of cannot even afford full day meal for the child. In the absence of proper care & support, these children are becoming increasingly vulnerable. Some such children are known to have died due to absence of proper care, nutrition and ART adherence.
The CCC project run by PRIDE India has been graded ‘A’ twice and is considered as one of the best CCC from Maharashtra State according to the NACO evaluation report.