Mangaluru/Assam: Centre for North East Studies & Policy Research (C-NES) has been operating the Boat Clinic programme in Assam with support from National Health Mission (NHM), Government of Assam since 2008. Given the nature of floods in Assam and the fury of the Brahmaputra River, boats are used by C-NES to reach difficult areas to provide healthcare to the people of Assam when none exist.
Dr. Edmond Fernandes, Founder and CEO, Centre for Health and Development (CHD Group) and Member-Health Task Force, DDMA, Government of Karnataka has been invited as the main resource person to train the medical doctors working in the boat clinics and to also upgrade their skills and competency in community medicine and public health for the Medical Officers Training Programme to be held on August 3 and 4 in Guwahati.
Dr. Edmond Fernandes will train the medical officers on a variety of public health areas ranging from climate change and human health implications, health in humanitarian emergencies, the recent updates of the National Health Policy 2017, Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris agreement and how it needs to be translated into regional level implementation in the healthcare sector. He will also focus on how public health activism needs to be strengthened at the grassroots while the same needs to be done at top tables of governance and why it becomes essential to address the social determinants of health. Post the training of the officers, he will hold a health camp for the people in the Boat Clinic in Guwahati.
C-NES is led by Sanjoy Hazarika, Founder and Managing Trustee who was a former correspondent of The New York Times and the member of the first National Security Advisory Board. This training for medical officers is being done in association with the National Health Mission, Regional Resource Centre–NE, RNTCP and CHD Group–India. Programme Manager Ashok Rao has coordinated the entire detail.
