Addressing challenges to access, affordability and preventive healthcare awareness for communities in rural areas
I.?????????????????? Background
With its purpose to the core “Reimagining a Healthier Planet”, PI Industries has been striving to make a sustainable and positive impact in the lives of communities around its operations as well as other geographies. Company’s CSR philosophy revolves around the principles of Caring, Sharing and Growing. Whatever is good for the country and communities is good for the company is the thought process of Promoters and leadership at PI Industries.
Fostering a robust CSR focus, our commitment extends to empower underprivileged rural communities majorly around our operations and beyond for the farmers in other parts of the country. Aligning with Sustainable Development Goals, our CSR approach is grounded in meticulous needs assessment, delving deep to truly understand their challenges, our own focus areas and both get to decide thematic areas for our CSR programs.? We prioritize community engagement, forging meaningful connections with local governments and key stakeholders to collaboratively shape our programs. By doing so, we ensure that our CSR initiatives resonate with genuine needs of people and collaborations with local governments and stakeholders play an important role in sustainability of these initiatives.
An in-depth needs assessment was conducted around our operations to gather insights, providing comprehensive depiction of communities’ needs, challenges and opportunities, enabling us to plan targeted interventions that make lasting impact. The communities in various pockets of Jambusar and Panoli struggle financially, making it difficult to travel long distances or afford the high cost of treatments. This restricts their access towards health care which results in undervalued health.
II.???????????? Problem Statement
Access to healthcare facilities closer to where communities live and unaffordability of private health services, which impacted women and children the most. Moreover, it takes about more than 45 minutes for a villager to reach their nearest hospital making medical treatment heavy on the pockets. Due to a lack of access to primary healthcare services in their vicinity, people in the rural villages either had to travel long distances to public health centres or pay high out of pocket expenses in private hospitals. As a result, most families preferred in-house symptomatically treatments of various ailments. There is lack of blood bank facilities in the vicinity of the villages of Ankleshwar and Jambusar, which can meet the demand of blood during any emergency which has adverse effect on the situation.
Around 70% of the households had no awareness or access to any opportunities to enhance their income, about 44% of the households located in those villages fall below the poverty line and about one third of the community do not even have access to toilets, affordable access to healthcare, which highlights the health risks associated with the unhygienic practices such as open defecation and open disposal of waste. Access to finance was major gap and hindrance to income generation, especially for women who could use their time and efforts and support their families for better life. The poverty rate in some of the pockets of Jambusar and Panoli region of Gujarat is high, resulting in?? number of households facing health and economic challenges.
III.???????????? Theory of Change
Due to lack of primary health access as people use to travel to long diseases or had to pay out of pockets or use to treat their diseases on household level based on their symptoms. It was crucial to create awareness about sanitation, nutrition, early diagnosis of diseases, preventive and curative health care among the people which ultimately leads to the overall well-being of the community. It was important to bring a change in the mindset of people to reach out to nearest physician for timely diagnosis and cure of the disease rather than treating it at home.
PI Foundation with the aim of improving community health care has taken various initiatives for holistic wellbeing and health care outreach to the communities.
With the initiatives and consistent efforts it has created awareness in the community about various health entitlements, government schemes specifically for pregnant women and infants and significance of timely treatment and health care.
IV.???????????? Steps in the project
PI Foundation, which is the implementation arm of PI Industries for their CSR initiatives, launched relevant initiatives with an objective to bridging the gaps to affordable healthcare for the underprivileged communities.? Based on need assessed, PI foundation is implementing various initiatives to provide information and services towards proper and preventive healthcare services such as:
PI Foundation in partnership with GVK – EMRI has equipped 3 Mobile Medical Unit with medical professionals, necessary equipment, and medications which supports communities in rural areas with last mile healthcare facilities and preventive health care awareness that would encourage villagers to undertake healthier practices in their daily lives. Our mobile medical units eliminate the transportation cost that underprivileged families have to bear in order to get treated, making healthcare not only affordable but also accessible. Through this initiative, multiple health and wellness camps are also organized in the community centres in the villages which help in health checkups, increasing awareness about nutrition, various health entitlements and treatment of basic diseases. Key stakeholder engagement included doctors, primary health centres, and other community health centres who added to the effective implementation of our initiative.
?PI Foundation has partnered with Rotary club of Ankleshwar to support running blood bank which meets blood related needs of local communities and ensured timely access of blood in lack of availability or medical emergencies. Supporting the operations of a blood bank is crucial for ensuring timely access to safe blood transfusions, particularly in emergencies and for patients with certain medical conditions.
Along with this, PI Foundation has constructed and maintains upkeep of school toilets to ensure students have hygienic infrastructure, supporting nutrition program for children in 66 anganwadis, which aims to reduce malnutrition amongst children which is one of the major causes of ill health. There is a special focus to educate adolescent girls on nutritional awareness and improve their health and wellbeing.???????
Saving Little Hearts project in partnership with Aishwarya Trust is dedicated to screening and treatment for congenital heart defects (CHD) also known as Blue Baby syndrome affecting nine out of 1000 new-borns and is one of the leading causes of infant mortality Through this project, we are able to save young lives by making the CHD treatment accessible to children from unprivileged families.
V.??????????????? Monitoring and evaluation processes
We have an effective technology-based ground monitoring system in place for monitoring and assessment of the projects. Complete patient data is recorded using a mobile application for project monitoring, and this data is then loaded onto a server. This aids in our analysis of the patients’ health issues and the diseases that are specific to a given village. This aids in the detection of any epidemic that emerges in the region and is immediately reported to the government authorities so that appropriate action can be taken on time. Apart from ground monitoring, the partner NGO submits progress reports to PI Foundation.
领英推荐
Every month, health camps are held in villages for the children receiving CHD treatment. During these camps, both new and post-surgery patients receive physical examinations. Additionally, there are six monthly and annual follow-up mechanisms. A telephone check-up module with a questionnaire tracks the entire patient’s information from health camps to surgery and recovery. Through this module, patients are connected for follow-up every six months following surgery. Overall, in our health initiatives we track the beneficiaries either physically, through application based system, field visits by CSR representative, quarterly impact reports, impact stories and fund utilization at the end of the financial year (FY).
VI.???????????? Outcomes and impacts
These initiatives have been implemented in more than 64 villages across 3 states i.e. Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, and Haryana. Our Mobile Medical Van Facility has served over 7.11 lakh people till date providing them with free of cost primary healthcare services and in FY 2023-24, more than 89,600 people have been benefitted by seeking the medical assistance. Through Blood Bank initiative we have benefitted to more than 14,200 people in FY 23-24 and so far impacted more than 55,200.
Wellness camps serve as platforms for conducting health check-ups and raising awareness about various health issues prevalent among the villagers. These camps are organized periodically and cover a wide range of health concerns, including but not limited to, chronic diseases, maternal and child health, infectious diseases, and hygiene practices. In FY23-24, our vision care intervention has organized and covered more than 6,200 children who have received vision screenings, diagnosing and treating common eye conditions.
Congenital heart defects are a significant cause of morbidity and mortality among children, particularly in resource-limited settings where access to specialized cardiac care is limited. In FY23-24, through this project, we provided screening services to 12 children with heart defects at an early stage and 85 children so far.
VII.????????? Challenges faced
The goal of PI’s health initiatives is towards provides health care to rural communities. And of the most significant step in this process is conducting health camps in villages/localities which enable people to access healthcare. But at times, conducting health camps is a challenge as it get cancelled or delayed if there is mistrust from the communities, election rallies or political unrest.
When Project Swasthya Seva was initiated, the community was reluctant to accept and trust the mobile medical services. As our health project was serving free of cost but there were a few local doctors who tried to create difficulties to discontinue the services. But with the consistent efforts from PI Foundation reaching the villages through Mobile Medical Units on a periodic basis, the community has started trusting and is availing benefits from the project.
VIII.?????? Sustainability and Exit Strategy
Through the health initiatives, PI Foundation has educated and brought a shift in the mind of the people about their perspective towards health entitlement especially for women and children, government schemes, preventive health care which will aid them to reach out to health care facility on time. The health camps conducted in collaboration with Public Health Centre or Anganwadis and construction of toilets in schools has created awareness about the malnutrition and significance of clean restrooms especially among the adolescent girls. This will help them in to take adequate nutrition for themselves and inculcate hygienic habits when they grow up.
We are collaborating with the NGO partners and local government to working together to improve and expand the capabilities of the rural health Sub-centres that are located 3-5 kms from the villages so, majority of basic health care needs of community can be addressed through these Subcentres for primary health care, medications, vaccines etc. We will be continuously assessing the capacities and accordingly focus on future.
?The impact of these health initiatives is profound and far-reaching, touching the lives of communities in underserved areas. These initiatives don’t just treat ailments; they strengthen communities by fostering preventive awareness education, reducing costs and lay the foundation for a healthier life.? The projects have contributed to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -promoting good health and well-being (SDG-3).
IX.???????????? Impact stories
#Story 1
Bharuch being a port city lies in the coastal areas of Gujarat & due high salinity in water, skin diseases are very prevalent among the people.
Dakshaben Mahendrabhai Patel, a 52-year-old woman from Neja village of Jambusar block has been suffering with skin disease in the dorsal part of her feet since past one year. Due to this, she was facing trouble in doing her daily chores and feeling disturbed. Her issue could not be resolved even after visiting the local physician. Finally she approached the Mobile Health Unit personnel and was given appropriate treatment and in two weeks, 60% of her disease was cured and she is still recovering. Today, Dakshaben is able to do her day-to-day activities with far more ease and comfort.
#Story 2
Divyashri, a young toddler from Vellore, Tamil Nadu had complaints with recurrent upper respiratory tract infections, weight loss and fever during a free pediatric camp at Vellore. She was diagnosed to have TOF*, large sub aortic VSD* with 50% aortic overriding issues in her heart. The family could not afford the surgical costs & hospital visits due to limited financial resources and approached Aishwarya Trust for support.
Post all requisite checkups, the child underwent surgery of VSD* / Trans atrial Trans pulmonary repair of TOF* on April 4th, 2023, through the support of PI Foundation. Post-surgery the child is active, and her motor/cognitive functions are normal. She has started speaking and playing like other children and is leading a normal healthy life.
Post-surgery, the family is no longer having the fear of their child falling sick anytime.? Now there are fewer or no hospital visits and has led to significant reduction in medical expenses of the family. The father can go to work and mother able to do her house chores as usual with a free mind. They are able to spend quality time together as a family rather than worry about hospital and doctors’ visits.