Bideshini has been working ever since she graduated from school. Currently, she is enrolled in the Bachelor of Social Work programme at the Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU). She recalls one of her fondest childhood memories-- when my picture was published in a magazine called Anteswara. She didn't know anything about what a camera was or what publishing was…

Bideshini Patel

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'Swasth Aspataal' - the campaign to bring positive change in Public Health Delivery System

The Covid pandemic has jolted us to look into our frail Public Health Care system in rural India. During the Pandemic time, we could see how precarious we were in terms of our Public Health Delivery Systems and the utter mismanagement and lack of access to medicines and oxygens. Learning and understanding the gravity of this situation, Video Volunteers has embarked on a journey to strengthen these last mile Health Delivery Systems, and has identified 24 Primary Health Centers, 8 Community Health Centers, and 2 District Hospitals across India to boost up their health care facilities, through community participation and mobilisation. This campaign is called ‘Swasth Aspataal (Healthy Hospitals).’

In this video, the Community Correspondent (CC) Videshini Patel tells us about the background and the strategy of this campaign. To have any positive change in this direction, one prerequisite is the participation of the community. The years of experience and insights of Video Volunteers helped in strategising this whole campaign. The chosen CC’s knew from their experience that there are good Samaritans in all communities who help selflessly in any emergency situations and include them in the team.

The ball started rolling as the milieu of the campaign was articulated and there was a call to action, starting August 2021 - 79 applicants of this campaign have identified the Health Centres and active citizens of the community to work as a team to ameliorate the conditions of these centres.

The idea is to match the facilities of these chosen health centres to the government guidelines, and if there is any discrepancy - find possible solutions to fix these issues.

Towards the end of the video, we can see a few success stories of this 11 month old campaign, where the amenities and infrastructures are comparatively improved. These are the effects of community and collective action, with the intention and belief that if we all come together and work in tandem, change is possible.

VV conducted one in-depth training with the Swasth Aspaatal activists on various Governmental Health Schemes, and possible ways to intervene in the upgrades. Several ideas and actions were worked upon in that workshop, one bright resultant of this interactive workshop is the excellent use of various Social Media Channels, for outreaching and attracting better participation of the community.

Thanks to this campaign, the chosen Health Centres are being looked upon critically with a clean lens of development. The nearby community is inspired to be with the ‘Swasth Aspataal’ as a team to collectively bring change, and usher a new hope in Public Health Delivery Systems.

Please share this video, these positive actions are our ray of hope, for change to come.