Trained Workers’ Network for Old Age Healthcare - A Progress Report

Trained Workers’ Network for Old Age Healthcare

(For Slums & JJ clusters of Delhi & NCR)

In collaboration with

FORD FOUNDATION

 PROGRESS REPORT…       

(As on 21^st May 2011)

Pathetic health condition of old people living in slums & Jhuggi Jhopri clusters of Delhi & surrounding areas has enforced Agewell Foundation to do something for improving health conditions of old people.

With the financial support from Ford Foundation Agewell Foundation has initiated the Healthcare Project with the objective to create healthcare awareness Slums & Jhuggi Jhopri clusters of Delhi & NCR and empower older persons to get proper treatment/medicines for their diseases.

Older persons living in slums & Jhuggi-Jhopri clusters were encouraged to “Learn from your symptoms and seek Low Cost Medical intervention” with the basic idea of “Early diagnose of symptoms of diseases, timely consultation and medication can improve health conditions of poor older persons of slum areas considerably”.

Project was started on 1^st September 2010 with a Project Coordinator, 2 teams of 6 team members and 2 team leaders and an Assistant.

For this project Agewell Foundation has identified about 430 volunteers mostly with medical background, who had confirmed their willingness and availability of time for this project as and when their services required.

With the support from Agewell volunteers, guidelines, useful medical tips and other project material were developed to help Agewell Health Care Teams in providing assistance to affected older persons. Out of volunteers’ network a Group of Trainers was also formed to train Team Leaders and Team members. Both the teams were adequately trained on how to deal with older persons & their family members and how to coordinate with other stakeholders viz. NGOs, government hospitals, clinics, health authorities, etc. in the process to extending help/assistance to poor and needy older persons suffering from any diseases or having symptoms of any disease.

1.   During the period of past nine months Trained Workers Teams visited 584 slums/JJ clusters spread across Delhi & NCR and identified over 23000 families with at least one older person as family members.

2.   Agewell Trained Workers Team members interacted with over 26000 older persons including approx. 12500 older women out of total 26258 older persons reportedly living in slum/Jhuggi-Jhopri clusters. 

3.    During the period over 22000 older persons were identified suffering from at least one disease or having symptoms of disease/s.

4.      Major diseases were found as under, whose symptoms were found largely in older persons living in slums/jhuggi-jhopri clusters.

·     Eye Related Diseases

·     Hearing disorder

·     Tuberculosis (T.B.)

·     Kidney Related Diseases

·     Arthritis & Osteoporosis (Weak Bones)

·     Mental Illnesses /psychological problems

·     Blood Pressure

·     Heart Problems & Heart Attack

·     Cancer

·     Diabetes

·     Kidney Disease

·     Prostate Enlargement

·     Dementia/Alzheimer's Disease

5.      Over 21500 older persons were successfully assisted/helped through Agewell interventions. Out of them 6256 older persons whose health condition was found critical and are in need of constant/regular care/medical help, were also referred to Agewell Volunteers for further action.

Statement of the activities conducted

(From 1^st September 2010 to 21^st May 2011) under the Healthcare Project

Month	Nos. of Slums/JJ Clusters visited	Nos. of Families visited	Nos. of older Persons in Families	Nos. of Older Persons Met	Nos. of Older Persons found Suffering/having symptoms of disease/s	Nos. of older persons assisted
September 2010	45	1545	2424	1687	1498	1425
October 2010	51	2018	3112	2548	2255	2184
November 2010	63	2705	3514	3055	2677	2599
December 2010	79	2954	3759	3496	3048	2910
January 2011	74	2855	3688	3290	2645	2560
February 2011	72	2915	3550	3311	2890	2777
March 2011	75	3114	3784	3475	2845	2801
April 2011	74	2941	3591	3095	2588	2410
May 2011 so far	51	2183	2520	2301	2021	1849
Total	584	23230	29942	26258	22467	21515

Healthcare assistance/help provided to older persons

Month	Nos. of older persons assisted	Kind of Intervention
		Counseling/ Guidance to (old persons/ family members)	Referred to Govt./ Charitable Hospitals/ clinics	Free Medicines/ Tips/ First aid	Refer to Agewell Volunteers
September 2010	1425	1090	294	354	420
October 2010	2184	1351	488	556	834
November 2010	2599	1524	680	635	812
December 2010	2910	2045	721	530	687
January 2011	2560	1855	559	465	744
February 2011	2777	2166	690	440	768
March 2011	2801	2087	702	638	817
April 2011	2410	1458	644	612	729
May 2011 so far	1849	1205	344	424	445
	21515	14781	5122	4654	6256

* The project is in progress