Minister health and family welfare P. Paiwang Konyak on Thursday attended the first Northeast Knowledge Conclave for Health at Guwahati.
The minister in his keynote address said the Northeast Conclave for Health has brought together the eight sisters of North-East India in a common platform and said the event was significant to showcase the achievements in responding to the state’s specific health issues and for an in-depth discussion on the health challenges that needs to be addressed.
Highlighting the activities for Nagaland state under Nagaland Health Project (NHP), the minister informed that NHP was the first state level project funded by the World Bank, implemented by the Department of Health & Family Welfare, Government of Nagaland and the intervention started in the year 2015 as a pilot project in two districts and fully scaled up to the remaining 16 districts in 2017.
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He said the first project component- Community Action for Health and Nutrition and was focused on Community Result Based Financing where health intervention by health committees aim to improve Health & Nutrition outcomes at the community level based on the Nagaland communitization concept and after which District level Result Based Financing (RBF) intervention was added.
In total he said the RBF component has been successfully implemented in 500 HCs (21 CHCs, 56 PHC, 100 SCs and 323 VHCs) including 11 District Hospital and CMO establishments.
In the last 7 years, all 500 health committees have been strengthened and revived; gender inclusion was addressed through the constitution of women co-chair in all the Health Centres while knowledge enhancement, awareness generation, sensitization on health and societal issues were efficiently strengthened, the minister informed.
Further he said the RBF investments in the health committees, has in turn encouraged many communities to chip in through community contribution and participation, as many as 115 communities have contributed in cash to their own health committee and almost all have contributed in kind or physical labour while social audits were also conducted by village councils, student bodies and said these practise needs to be sustained for the system to improve.
The second component on Health Systems Strengthening (HSS) is an input-based financing, the minister informed saying investments have been made using the World Bank guided procurement process.
He maintained that NHP investment is made in WATSAN-infrastructural development, Alternate energy-SOLAR, Supply Chain Management, IT and sustainable Biomedical Waste management as per the provisions of Biomedical Waste Management Act.
Also, to improve the efficiency of service delivery he said many digital platforms have been created in the form of Hospital Information System (HIS), Bio-medical waste management reporting system & Human Resource Management System Drug and Vaccine Distribution and Management System (DVDMS) along with other IT applications.
The project has also implemented the Drug and Vaccine Distribution and Management System (DVDMS) and constructed a state warehouse to improve the supply chain management system.
He said civil repair and renovation works have been completed in four Nursing Schools and Para Medical Training Institute and 176 targeted health facilities while also Construction of State warehouse has been completed. Construction of the Library and Theatre Block at Nagaland Medical College Kohima is also under NHP, which is in progress.
In the midst of Covid pandemic he said immense additional support to the department was provided by the Project by Supplying Oxygen cylinders and Concentrators across the state and the project has also Constructed oxygen generation Plant houses in eight District hospitals and Installed Oxygen pipelines at various Health facilities.
He said NHP has demonstrated that there are many ways to promote the right economic incentives to support sustainable practices in finance by bringing together on a voluntary basis, communities, government and banks.
Availability of finance is a key challenge in facilitating systemic transitions and therefore he said the investments made by the World Bank through NHP should be sustained to ensure that the gains made over the years are consolidated.
He also urged all the neighbouring states to foster the relationship and exchange ideas and good practices to learn from each other and move together with the rest of the other States in the country.
