Health promotion initiatives: An experience of a Well Women's Clinic

BackgroundArmy Medical Corps provides comprehensive health care services to troops and their dependents. This approach is in consonance with the concept of Health Promoting Hospitals (HPH) initiative introduced by WHO in 1986. However, the concept is still at an infancy stage in civil health care system in India. This article describes the experiences and advantages of establishing a Well Women's Clinic (WWC) in a station of North India.MethodsA system analysis approach was followed for analyzing input, process and output of the WWC during 2007–2009. Inputs included manpower and material i.e public health expert, non medical attendant and a nursing officer charts, poster, models, Television with Compact Disc (CD) player and CDs etc. Health promotion activities were conducted in the form of lectures, demonstrations, workshops, training, screening of movies, quiz, essay writing and declamation contests etc.ResultsOverall 385 lectures, 12 competitions, 07 training capsules were conducted. Coverage of target population was 92%. First aid training workshop trained 300 women. Six percent of the counseled women opted for tubectomy. Twelve new cases of diabetes and four new cases of hypertension were detected through screening. Seventy-two women were referred for dental treatment after a dental screening camp.ConclusionEstablishment of WWC using HPH approach was quite cost effective.