State health officials apprised on ECHO’s vision

A two-day training workshop on ‘Nagaland Immersion’ for senior health officials of the state focused on health system strengthening through capacity building conducted by Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes (ECHO) India and National Health Mission (NHM) Nagaland at de Oriental Grand Kohima commenced on January 17.
The training aimed to apprise the state’s health officials about effective implementation of ECHO’s “All Teach All Learn” model of capacity building to further strengthen the state’s health system.
At the inaugural session of the workshop, Mission Director, NHM Nagaland, Dr. Ritu Thurr said that with the signing of MoU between ECHO and NHM Nagaland, the TB Programme, Immunization and the Nursing Councils of Nagaland were successfully initiated and also through the ECHO platforms, virtual training during Covid 19 pandemic were successfully conducted, where more than 300 frontline workers across the state were trained.
He said the support and contribution rendered by ECHO to the state during the Covid -19 pandemic, initiation of various immunization with different models, and medical education were also successful.
Commissioner & Secretary, Health & Family Welfare, Kikheto Sema said though Nagaland has a small population but when it comes to health sector a lot needed to be done due to the geographical and topographical conditions.
He said visualizing this importance in 2001, the government started a communalization to create awareness amongst the minds of the people in the health and education sector but the state was not in a position to implement it.
However, he expressed the hope that the intervention by ECHO would create awareness in the minds of the people.
Kikheto said that the Covid -19 pandemic has opened the need to provide better health care to the people.
He highlighted state government’s vision to provide equitable, affordable, and speedy health care to all the people with the involvement of the communities and right-minded organizations.
Associate Vice President, ECHO India, Dr. Sandeep Bhalia also presented a PowerPoint overview of ECHO India’s Key Highlights.
The resource persons for the two-day training were Manager Training Team, Palash Tiwari, Sr. Executive Training Team, Ismail Ahmed, and Associate Manager Training Team, Sonam Parnami.
The ECHO India established in 2008, is a non-profit trust focused on bringing equity primarily in the fields of healthcare and education through capacity building of healthcare practitioners and educators.
In Nagaland, ECHO India has established two telementoring hubs and has partnered with the state’s National Health Mission (NHM), State Tuberculosis Cell (STC) Kohima, and the Nagaland Nursing Council, with an aim to build the capacities of healthcare workers in primary and tertiary care centres.