the fifth es

tate

10

india HealtH action trust

HCL Grant Recipient

Health, 2021

HCL Grant Project Title:

Improving Maternal, Newborn and Child

Health Outcomes in Tribal Areas of Madhya

Pradesh (MANCH)

India Health Action Trust (IHAT) works

closely with national and state governments to

provide technical support to projects in HIV

prevention and care. It also drives sustainable

change in thematic areas like maternal and

child health, Tuberculosis (TB) prevention

and control, family planning, nutrition and

strengthening health systems. e HCL Grant

Project, MANCH (Maternal, Newborn and

Child Health), launched in partnership with

the Government of Madhya Pradesh and the

National Health Mission, envisages increasing

the availability, quality and utilization of

critical MNCH services across the continuum

of care in Shahdol district of Madhya Pradesh.

Its goals are to improve maternal and neonatal

health outcomes, and to generate knowledge

to support the scale up of successful

interventions among tribal populations across

the state, nationally and globally. e funds

support human resources, at district, health

facility and community level, to technically

support and handhold district health staff,

Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANMs) and nurses

in the health facilities, and frontline health

workers within the tribal communities.

Improving the coverage and quality of

antenatal and post-natal care and interactions

between the frontline workers and pregnant

or lactating women and their families,

enhancing the coverage and quality of services

for institutional deliveries within the public-

sector healthcare facilities and supporting

real-time individualized data and reporting

are the key objectives of the project. e Grant

will help adapt and innovate interventions to

reach 30,000 pregnant/new mothers, 25,000

newborns, 500 frontline workers, 235 clinical

service providers like ANMs, doctors, etc.

Innovations are deeply embedded in the

core structure of the project, such as the

creation of a cadre of ‘Mentors’ who teach,

guide and hand-hold frontline and facility-

level health workers. A solar-powered digital

ante-natal (ANC) kit is being used by ANMs

to identify High-Risk Pregnant women during

ANC/pre-natal care (PNC) check-up. is

will help in the early identification of high-risk

pregnancy cases. With the project resources,

mini-skill labs for nurses and ANMs to

practice core competencies for delivery and

essential newborn care will be established in

each of three blocks in Shahdol. In alignment

with the National Digital Mission, IHAT

is piloting implementation of a number of

digital tools that enable real-time capture and

monitoring of process-related programme

data using work-flow platforms rather than

routine data entry.