VIJAYAWADA: The Andhra Pradesh Health Department has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with YosAid Health Foundation, Bengaluru for launching a Statewide care companion programme (CCP) to support mothers and newborns. The MoU was signed by Health Commissioner J Nivas and co-CEO and co-founder of YosAid Health Foundation Shahed.
The CCP will be planned and implemented in district/teaching/area hospitals, community health centres, Primary Health Centres and Health and Wellness Centres in the State, in collaboration with the YosAid Innovation Foundation to provide support to the mothers and the newborns.
The programme envisages providing the knowledge to mothers/patients, family members, and care givers in basic and simple yet effective medical skills, which will help in fast recovery. Under the CCP, staff nurses, counsellors, mid-level health care providers of ANC, PNC, SNCU/NBSU wards will be
upskilled and the OPDs will be turned into classrooms by empowering family care givers with healthy behaviours in a simple and interactive way along with effective use of MCCS/WhatsApp technology as a means of providing ongoing information to the interested mothers and family members, which will subsequently lead to a healthier and informative environment.
The care companion programme is a simple yet effective programme that broadly impacts health systems, providers and patients.The training targets not only the mothers, but also fathers, grandmothers, and other relatives within the SNCU as they are key influencers of health behaviours. It is part of the government’s broader efforts to promote and improve the quality of life of mothers and newborns.