RIHFW Kashmir
Training's, Orientations and Workshops being held Regularly under Various National Programmes and Projects since 2000
Training's under the ' National Programme on Orientation of Medical Officers Working in Primary Health Centres to Disability Management'.
Disability is a colossal problem for India with 5-10% of its huge population being disabled. This comes to a cool 50-100 million people. This figure is apt to increase significantly in the coming years because of various reasons. Demographic transition with increasing proportion of senior citizens, better diagnostic facilities, changing patterns of disease, newer life styles and ways of living with increased chances of accidents and addictions, all will add to the number of the disabled in the next 2 decades. People with disabilities are generally poor, dependent and vulnerable, and since they don't have any say or representation in various forums, the vast majority (98%) of them remain totally neglected by policymakers and planners.
Hitherto, rehabilitation has been perceived as an expensive, even luxurious pursuit, with little to show for the effort and money expended. Most of the rehabilitation work across the globe has been done by charitable institutions or voluntary organizations and individuals. Although the member States of the World Health Organization had decided as early as the late 1970s to include rehabilitation as an integral part of primary health care services to provide the resources needed for all people with disability, services for prevention, early detection, intervention and rehabilitation in rural India are still minimal. The main constraints for an effective rural disability management service are paucity of the trained staff, lack of awareness among the health workers about magnitude, etiology and early detection methods, and the lack-lustre nature of rehabilitation work.
Even after 52 years of Independence, the rehabilitation services remained restricted to big institutions in urban areas, which could not reach more than 1.5-3% of the total disabled population. There was, thus, always an urgent need to develop such services in rural areas by building up linkages through convergence.
In order to augment the government efforts with complete community involvement, various steps were undertaken which culminated into the setting up of the Rehabilitation Council of India, under an Act of Parliament in 1992, to function under the overall direction of the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment (Previously called the Ministry of Social Welfare). The Council is the apex regulatory body in the country for disability management, and one of its fundamental duties is to ensure quality delivery of various services needed by the disabled people at the most peripheral levels possible. This led to inception of the National Programme on Orientation of Medical Officers working in Primary Health Centres to Disability Management, with the objective of reaching the rural needy where rehabilitation services are almost non-existent. Since the prime, basic or at times the only, place of contact for rural India is the primary health centre, the Rehabilitation Council of India envisaged a programme which aims at spreading quality prevention, early detection, intervention, referral and rehabilitation facilities to the rural disabled. Initially the idea was to train medical officers of all the existing primary health centres in the country so that a pool of trained staff exists all over the rural India, but in the year 2002, the RCI resolved to train all the government doctors of rural India. These Training's are envisaged to be conducted, with the help of master trainers, at district headquarters.
Training's in Disability Management: The two-stage training programme was started in the country on 30 th of July1999. In the first phase, master trainers of the States and Union Territories had to be trained. These included orthopedicians, ophthalmologists, ENT specialists, psychiatrists, clinical psychologists, public health specialists, teachers specially trained in the education of the disabled, and voluntary workers from various non-governmental organizations. The first phase was accomplished in Jammu and Kashmir State within 2 months of the start of the programme in the country, viz from 27 th to 30 th September 1999. The venue was our Institute which had been taken over by the department a mere 15-days ago. While the budget was provided for 9 master trainers we trained 16 instead. The 4-day programme enrolled trainees from all districts including those from remote and less-privileged areas of Ladakh. The curriculum (table) was in accordance with the national curriculum for disability management prescribed by the Rehabilitation Council of India, and the guest faculty was derived from various apical, national level centres of excellence in disability management (table).
As required, the first phase was followed in quick succession by training of medical officers working in primary health centres. Starting from 10 th April 2000, 30 batches of PHC medical officers have been oriented with the help of the master trainers and the guest faculty. The training curriculum, again, is prescribed by the Rehabilitation Council of India, and consists of 3 days of intensive training, interactive discussions and exercises and films. Field visits to the Orthotic and Prosthetic Centre of the Bone and Joint Hospital, Srinagar; the Psychiatric Disease Hospital, Srinagar; and the Abhinandhan Home for Disabled Children, are undertaken to impart training and full exposure to free availability of various technical aids and equipments used for the disabled. Apart from the technical component, the facilitators inform the participants about the rights and privileges of the disabled and various concessions provided to them by the State and the Central government.