Elder and Sister Tanner: NRT 5 - A Humanitarian Project

Tuesday, January 5, 2009

This is probably the last LDSC NRT project in India and it was the easiest by far. The Indian Academy of Pediatrians (IAP) in one year since Bangalore in January, 2009, has made absolutely fantastic progress with their First Golden Minute (FGM) program. They ran the show this time around, 100%, and we only needed to be there to represent LDSC for the first day recognitions and to handle logistics for the LDSC team of doctors. Sister Tanner and I were given a great introduction and invited to speak. Each of us gave a short talk expressing appreciation for the opportunity to partner with IAP and shared some comments about the church we represent, its humanitarian efforts in India, and our own volunteer service. Our comments were well received.

It took 4 pages just to summarize what has happened in the past year with NRT in India and the progress in addressing birth asphyxia has been amazing. Now we're hoping to see positive affects once the infant mortality rate (IMR) is assessed again. I'll include just one paragraph from the report that might be of interest and provides a micro-summary of its own.

"There are 3 general birthing venues, and their associated birth attendants, to be concerned with in covering newborn care. The first venue is private institutions, the second is public institutions, and the doctors and accredited nurse midwives (ANM) in both, and the third is births outside an institution usually attended by non-ANM midwives or traditional birth attendants (TBA). IAP’s FGM program is aggressively and successfully addressing, on a national scale, the first venue, private institutions and their providers. The significance of the GOI NSSK program is that it addresses, also on a national scale, the second venue of public facilities and personnel, and will eventually extend to the third venue per the GOI’s stated objectives. Also worth noting is that India was selected as one of two pilot sites for the AAP HBB program which is targeted at the third venue, non-institution births and attending TBAs. The HBB pilot in Belgaum, India will begin in January, 2010." (Helping Babies Breath - HBB)

I posted about the GOI NSSK program launch back in September when we went to Jaipur for the launch event. The bottom-line is the LDSC efforts have proven to be a catalyst to the efforts of IAP which led directly to the GOI program and LDSC also provided program input and seed equipment to the GOI program launch via IAP. It is something we can look back on with a great deal of satisfaction if it has a positive affect on the IMR.

Nothing really exciting to report on the Hyderabad Pedicon NR training event. Tuesday began with a faculty meeting of the American and Indian doctors who would be doing the training that afternoon. This session was essentially a review of the new curriculum that was adopted, the one the Government of India Ministry of Health developed based on the IAP model which was developed from the LDSC and AAP models. The mix of doctors with egos, and some unwillingness to listen at times, made for some self-serving conversation and a little rancor in the discussion. It all worked out though when everyone finally realized it was all about resuscitation and as Dr Bell put it, by Wednesday afternoon everyone was having a kumbaya moment.

I have to laugh looking at what was just written and all the acronyms, but what else would you expect from an ex-IT guy in India, a country that loves acronyms and abbreviations? It was hard to understand some newspaper articles for a while until we began to accumulate enough common use acronyms. See the banner picture farther down.

The faculty meeting of Indian and American doctors who would do the training. L-R Dr Mark Sheffield, Sister Tanner, Dr Robert Clark, Dr Naveen Thacker, Elder Tanner, Dr Jagdish Chandra

Most events in India begin with a lamp lighting ceremony that has its origins in the Hindu religion but has evolved into more of a ribbon cutting type event in many cases.

Here is Dr Richard Bell doing his bit.

Dr Naveen Thacker, with the mike, has been the visionary, champion, and driving force behind what IAP has accomplished with their NR program. Susan Clark (AAP) and Bill Keenan with the blue shirt (AAP), who is credited with being the father of NRT, are to Naveen's left.

The training was held at the NICE Hospital for Children, one of the nicest venues we have trained at. Sister Tanner loved the ambulances. The large vehicle is not a common site in India as the smaller version is almost exclusively what you see.

IAP - Indian Academy of Pediatrics