The Asara project provides services as well as generates demand. It aims to reduce maternal and infant mortality among the tribal population of remote hamlets of Araku. The outreach teams, each consisting of an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife and a pilot, are selected from the local communities; and they conduct house-to-house visits in hard-toaccess habitations to register new cases of pregnancy and conduct basic health screening for new and existing pregnant women to identify high-risk pregnancies. Along with the screening, they also build awareness of the pregnant women, the caregiver, and other key stakeholders of the community on proper care, the need and availability of services and benefits, etc. Identified new and high-risk pregnant women due for antenatal check-up are ferried to the Telehealth Center at Araku where they receive consultation by an MBBS doctor followed by a Gynaecologist through telemedicine. The outreach team then conducts focused follow-up with the beneficiaries to provide postnatal care to the mother and newborn up to 42 days after the delivery. At the time of labour, the pregnant woman goes to a functional government health facility for delivery. For transportation, she can use either her own means or can reach out to the Asara team.
From January 1st 2016, we have provided antenatal consultations to 11,293 pregnant women, postnatal consultations to 10,657 women and infants. We have also monitored the growth of 2,180 under five children. In addition, we have built a strong partnership with several Departments within the Government to expand our work. We have been able to completely avoid all maternal deaths among women who have been registered by us. We have been able to leverage technology to make healthcare accessible in remote areas for the vulnerable population, we have set up nutrition hubs using locally available food items and resources and we are using data for enhancing service delivery and advocacy for scale up.
In order to reach a large number of tribal women and children across India, we are establishing a first-of-its-kind Tribal Health Collaborative that aims to end preventable maternal deaths.
