In an effort to improve rural maternal healthcare services in the country, Karuna Trust and the Asian Research & Training Institute for Skill Transfer (ARTIST) are in a public-private-partnership (PPP) with the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to adopt and manage the First Referral Units (FRU), exclusively for maternal healthcare services, in several economically backward districts of Karnataka.

While Karuna Trust is responsible to identify  the medical professionals for each FRU, ARTIST will undertake the capacity building of personnel, monitor services and operate the helpline, as a technical partner of the PPP. It will manage the FRUs round-the-clock and no patient will be turned away for any reason. While families below the poverty line (BPL) will be given services for free at the FRUs, those above the poverty line will be charged nominally for every delivery.

The FRU will offer full scale of maternal healthcare services from screening, scanning, laboratory tests to medicine supply and institutional delivery. Each FRU will have four staff nurses, two health workers, two ward boys, one doctor, one  postgraduate doctor and one ambulance.

“We pioneered and implemented a successful PPP model that helps leverage the government's investment in public health care infrastructure by complementing it with a socially committed, not-for-profit but professionally competent management team. We are now associated with ARTIST and the initiative will help provide quality the maternal healthcare,” said Dr H Sudarshan, honorary secretary, Karuna Trust.

According to Dr Hema Divakar, chairperson, ARTIST and president of Federation of Ob. Gynaec Society of India (FOGSI), FRUs set up by the government are facing acute shortage of qualified doctors because of which the local population is unable to access better healthcare services. We have often heard about the reluctance of experienced doctors to work in rural areas. In order to reverse this trend and offer the best of maternal healthcare to the rural masses, ARTIST has signed this MoU with the NRHM. Going forward, we expect to manage more  FRUs in backward districts.

Since 2007, ARTIST with NRHM under the PPP model has been managing a successful FRU at Santhemaralli in Chamarajanagara district, which was scaled up  from 50 to 150 deliveries a month from the third month of its inception. Currently this FRU handles over 200 deliveries a month. The same PPP model is now  extended to Raichur FRU. In the coming months, ARTIST will manage the FRUs in Gulbarga, Bagalkote and Bidar where maternal healthcare services is poor. It has also changed the attitude of doctors to work in the rural areas. There is a positive response among the villagers because the services are available 24/7. There is a need for more such FRUs in the state. All schemes of the government like the Janani, Talibhagya and Madilu – are available at the FRUs,” stated Dr Diwakar.