Assessment of functioning of Health and Wellness Centers in a district of Western Gujarat

Abstract

Introduction: Ayushman Bharat is an attempt to move from a selective approach to health care to deliver comprehensive range of services spanning preventive, promotive, curative, rehabilitative and palliative care. To ensure delivery of Comprehensive Primary Health Care services, existing Sub Health Centers and Primary Health Centers are converted to Health and Wellness Centers (HWC).Objective: The main objective of our study is to assess functionality of HWCs in various blocks of Jamnagar district and to determine prevalence of non-communicable diseases in the community. It is a cross sectional study conducted between August-December 2019. A semi-structured proforma containing questionnaires was used for data collection. Data were entered and analyzed in Microsoft Excel version 2007.There are 58 health and wellness centers in Jamnagar, of which, we randomly select 50% of centers from each taluka, so total of 29 HWCs selected, four among them could not be assessed, so our final sample size would be 25. Result: Our study observed satisfactory performance of health and wellness centres except barring a few indicators. Community health officers and multipurpose workers are available in about majority of centers. The study found that the prevalence of hypertension, diabetes mellitus, oral Cancer, breast cancer, and cervical Cancer was 20.44%, 11.03%, 0.73% 0.45% and 1.02% respectively. Staff at the centers was in need of vital training like Techo, refresher training etc. Conclusion: Majority of health and wellness centers are functioning as per the guidelines laid down by the Government barring a few services like laughing club, music therapy, meditation etc.