Pune zilla parishad’s child health tracking systems completes two successful rounds of screening
The child health tracking system, a digital initiative by Pune zilla parishad to track the health of children up to six years of age in the rural areas across 13 tehsils, completed two successful rounds of screening and interventions by specialists at medical camps this year, said officials on Thursday.
In the first phase, more than 3.1 lakh children were screened while 2.7 lakh were screened in the second phase. The Pune zilla parishad was able to identify over 100 children with cardiac ailments and facilitated surgeries for close to 50.
Speaking to The Indian Express, CEO of Pune zilla parishad Ayush Prasad said, “The aim is to improve the nutrition and health status of children in the age group of 0-6 by monitoring their health through digital intervention. We could also identify which child has birth defects or suffers from malnutrition and other diseases and development delays through the system.”
Prasad added, “The officials of the Child health tracking system work closely with teams of the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK), a central programme under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Regular health screening is conducted at schools twice a year.”
“Under the project (based on an auto diagnostic system), door-to-door screening by community health officers and RBSK officials were carried out. The children were scanned for birth defects, diseases, deficiencies and development delays and 30-32 common health conditions for early detection and treatment, including surgeries at the tertiary level. The data is fed in the tracking system so that the health workers can monitor the growth charts at the anganwadi level,” Prasad said.
Pune district health officer Dr Bhagwan Pawar said, “The door-to-door scanning was started in September and in February and later in April, specialists from various hospitals evaluated the children for better health management.”
According to Dr Ujwala Jadhav, a Pune zilla parishad health official, “The screening programmes helped identify children with birth defects, ophthalmic, ENT and malnutrition problems. In the first round of screening, 1,549 moderately malnourished children were identified and after subsequent health interventions during the second round, we noted that 999 were in the recovery phase. As many as 205 of the 324 children with severe malnutrition problems are showing definite signs of progress.”
In the first phase, around 4,603 children were referred to larger tertiary centres for better treatment. Around 1,478 had ENT disorders followed by 1,031 with ophthalmic ailments. There were 308 who had birth defects while 537 had skin disorders. A total of 1,725 were moderately malnourished children while 394 were severely malnourished children.
In the second phase, more than 2.7 lakh children were screened and around 2,050 were referred to tertiary care centres for better treatment. There were 1,373 children with moderate malnutrition while 343 had severe malnutrition. Around 225 children had ENT disorders.
Cleft lip surgeries were also taken up, said the health officials of the Pune zilla parishad. Officials cited the instance of a two-year-old child who was diagnosed with a cleft lip at Bhandgaon anganwadi in Daund tehsil of Pune district and said she was referred to Aditya Birla Hospital where the surgery was performed in March this year. “Intervention was done within 48 days after being diagnosed at the expert camp,” the officials added.
