Ekam Foundation, a non-governmental organisation working for child and maternal healthcare, will soon recruit and train 741 nurses to be posted at primary health centres (PHC) functioning under the directorate of public health across the State.
The training will be on obstetrics, neonatal, paediatrics, adolescent care and emergency management.
In addition, Ekam will also train 192 government staff nurses in maternal and child healthcare, and also on the assessment of infrastructure and sanitation in PHCs, based on Unicef’s tools designed for accreditation.
“We outsourced the recruitment of nurses through Ekam Foundation to run our neonatal intensive care units at medical college hospitals and government hospitals. This is basically a public-private-partnership to provide better care for newborns,” an official of the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project said.
Recently, the NGO participated in RMNCH+A (Reproductive, Maternal, Neonatal, Child Health + Adolescent Health care), a workshop held in the city. Officials from the National Rural Health Mission, Unicef and the State health department were also present. “The recruitment of nurses is going on and will be completed by December 14,” said B. Sailakshmi, paediatrician and founder of Ekam.
At present, around 2,300 nurses recruited by Ekam are working across the State. This includes 640 at special newborn care units, 340 at newborn stabilisation units and 1,212 in non- communicable diseases intervention programmes at PHCs, additional PHCs and urban PHCs, said Manoj Chandra Hemandri, State programme officer, Ekam.
“The government staff nurses will be trained on various aspects including neonatal and paediatric advanced life support, paediatric emergency care as well as integrated management of neonatal and childhood illnesses,” he said.
Training on assessing infrastructure and sanitation gaps at hospitals will be provided based on RMNCH+A guidelines. Following this, these nurses will become master trainers and train other nurses on these aspects, Mr. Hemandri said.
