Mumbai : Health Management and Research Institute (HMRI), an initiative of the Piramal Foundation, in association with National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), Assam have set up a call centre for pregnant women in Assam under the Central Government’s Mother and Child Tracking System (MCTS) scheme.  Sri Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Honourable Minister of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India formally inaugurated the MCTS Call Centre at HMRI premises in Guwahati on September 01, 2013.

Other distinguished dignitaries present on the occasion of the launch ceremony were Dr Hemanta Biswa Sarma – State Health Minister, Smt. Anuradha Gupta, Additional Secretary and Mission Director of NRHM, Govt. of India, Dr. Partho Jyoti Gogoi, the Regional Director of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India and   Mr Hajela – the NRHM Director, Assam along with the senior leaders of HMRI and Piramal Foundation.

The call centre pioneers an innovative concept to provide a set of comprehensive virtual services to pregnant women and children in the state of Assam thereby augment the efforts towards reducing the Maternity Mortality Rate (MMR) and Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) through this initiative. A state-of-the-art application software has been developed by HMRI especially for this project which will enable the tracking of the progress during the entire pregnancy period of the expecting mother and subsequently till the immunization schedule is completed for the new born child.

“HMRI, an initiative of the Piramal Foundation, addresses healthcare needs of the underprivileged sections in various states.  This initiative in Assam further reinforces our endeavor in providing technology enabled scalable solutions that can provide health advice and support to people living in the remotest parts of India”, said Mr. Paresh Parasnis, Head of Piramal Foundation on this occasion.

MCTS is a Central Govt. initiative, and most of the states in India are in the process of implementing this scheme.

Other services offered by HMRI in association with NRHM in Assam are the Sarathi 104 Health Helpline, ASHA (Accredited Social Health Activist) Helpline, ARSH (Adoloscent Reproductive, Sexual Health) Helpline, Village Health Outreach Programme and a telemedicine solution for diabetes treatment and prevention.

Source : Lokesh Shastri