CHANDIGARH, 10 MARCH 2008:A one day workshop on Govt -NGO Partnership under the National Rural Health Mission’s Reproductive Child Health (RCH) Scheme was held here today at Chandigarh. The workshop was organized by Department of Health, Punjab in collaboration with Regional Resource Center- MAMTA (a NGO) and was attended by Additional Deputy Commissioners, Civil surgeons, District Family Welfare Officers and the representatives of various NGO’s belonging to the districts of Amritsar, Bathinda,Kapurthala, Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Gurdaspur, Hoshiarpur and Sangrur.
Punjab’s Health Secretary cum Mission Director NRHM, Shri Tilak R. Sarangal was the chief guest whereas other senior officers including Dr CS Brar, State Programme Manager-NRHM; Dr. Amarjeet Kaur, Regional Director GOI; Dr Meenu Lakhanpal, State NGO Coordinator; Ms Ranjit Kaur, HRD Manager-NRHM and Ms Mandeep Kaur, Training Coordinator-MAMTA attended the workshop.
Shri Tilak R. Sarangal while addressing the participants said that the broad objective behind the workshop was to strengthen the partnership between Govt and Non Govt Organizations in order to ensure smooth delivery of health care services and to meet the desired goals under the RCH programme. The other objectives of workshop was to understand the role of NGO’s and to explore the areas where Govt and NGO’s can join hands for bringing improvement in the health care services. He added that the main focus of the workshop remained on the identification of workable strategies for promoting mutual partnership and each others contribution towards improving RCH indicators.
He said partnership involves equal involvement and responsibility of both partners. He urged the NGO’s to remain proactive and develop a dynamic process of dialogue with district and state mission for achieving the reduction in Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR). He further said that
NGO’s have a major role to play in involving people of un-served and under-served areas to utilize available resources to the maximum. He also discussed the role of NGO’s in promoting institutional deliveries so that a safe delivery for every woman could be ensured.