Mini Health Centres

Dr. K.S. Sanjivi, the founder of VHS, introduced the concept of a Mini Health Centre (MHC) that would look after the health needs of 2000 families or around 10,000 population in a rural or semi-urban area. This would be more flexible and responsive in its approach than the primary health centres functioning in India. Instead of bringing in highly trained but insufficiently motivated staff, there would be greater reliance on a local resident trained in elementary health care. The MHC concept found early recognition and acclaim as far back as 1969 by UNICEF, ICMR, ICSSR and has served as a model at national level.

The 14 Mini Health Centres that are run at present cover a population of around 100,000, serving the rural community of the eastern parts of Kancheepuram district.

Quality medical care is provided along with other health care activities like immunisation, antenatal and postnatal care, family welfare, environmental sanitation, conducted deliveries, school health examination, and maintenance of birth and death records. Identification and treatment of TB cases are some of the routine work done in the MHCs. Regular visits by the Medical Officers of the tertiary VHS Medical Centre form the basis for specialised care and for referral services.

The Sir Dorabji Tata Trust supports the activities of the Mini Health Centres.

Community Services

The community health operational strategy is based on three levels of intervention:

• Community Outreach and Clinical Services

• Training

• Research

The community outreach component provides a continuum of primary health including curative, preventive, promotive, and rehabilitative care. It includes mother and child health interventions, health education and promotion through folk arts and street theatre, infant growth and milestone monitoring, collaboration with Government National Programmes, nutrition demonstrations, supplementary feeding programmes for antenatal mothers, subsidised weaning mix, joint action with women’s self-help groups, promotion of kitchen gardens, etc. Daily out-patient clinics, basic laboratory services, field clinics, and referral to VHS, all form part of the clinical services offered.

The VHS-MAC Institute of Community Health is recognised for Ph.D studies in Community Health, M.D. in Community Medicine, and Diploma in National Boards in Family Medicine. Internees from MBBS courses, physiotherapy, occupational therapy, and degree and diploma nursing students are trained in community health at the Model Health-cum-Training Centre at Thuraipakkam. Paramedical students in courses such as Occupational Therapy, Physiotherapy, Nutrition and Dietetics, and Hospital and Health Administration are posted here for their community health component. Non-formal training activities include training and consultancy for other community health organisations, as well as in-house staff training.

The research component provides continuous feedback and monitoring of health needs and programme effectiveness and impact studies in MHC areas. The Institute undertakes epidemiological, clinical and socio-economic studies, which have been published in indexed journals.

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