STATE TIMES NEWS
JAMMU: Ministry of Tribal Affairs, Government of India had announced a celebration of the 3rd Janjatiya Gaurav Yatra all over India from November 15 to 26, 2023 to commemorate the contribution of tribal communities in National history and culture and motivate the coming generations to protect our cultural heritage and National pride.
To commemorate the event, AIIMS Jammu organized multipronged activities including a panel discussion on tribal health issues for MBBS students, a Health camp, health promotional activities at two tribal villages of Samba distric and Health talk with tribal children of Reasi District in collaboration with IIT Jammu.
A panel discussion was organized on the topic “Tribal Health Issues, Health Problems and Research Priorities in jammu& Kashmir. to Guide. students wishing to Carry out research and Publish research papers on tribal matters” on November 21, targeting 2020 batch MBBS students of AIIMS Jammu under the guidance of Dr Dinesh Kumar, Dean (Academics). Faculty members from the Departments of Community Medicine, Ophthalmology and General Surgery participated in the panel discussion.
The topics discussed were the major Health related issues among tribes of India, different tribal population in J&K, major determinants of health problems among Tribes of J&K, the social vulnerability of tribal people in local context, research priorities and approaches for tackling health hazards in tribal population comprising migratory lot too and preparing a research manuscript for publication.
The students were given orientation on various training programs on research focusing tribal population in India with reference to jk ut tribal population also.
Two Health camps were organized in two selected tribal villages (Gujjar Basti Sujwan and Gujjar Basti Rakh Barotian) in Samba District of Jammu and Kashmir, on November 22, in coordination with Department of Tribal Affairs and department of Health, Jammu and Kashmir UT.
Key activities included opportunistic Screening of common Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) like Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension, testing of existing NCD patients. eye checkup, treatment of common ailments and health promotional activities involving tribal children.
Under the guidance of Dr. Dinesh Kumar, Dean (Academics) AIIMS Jammu, faculty from Departments of Community Medicine, Ophthalmology, Endocrinology, ENT and General Surgery actively participated in the health camp.
Around 110 patients were provided free consultation, diagnosis and free medicines in these camps. The list of all the patients who were screened positive for NCDs at the camp were intimated to the local health authority for further follow-up and management.
A health promotional activity was conducted among 28 middle school tribal students of Government school situated at Gujjar Basti Rakh Barotian which included lectures & demonstrations on personal hygiene like anticeptic hand wash, teeth care, importance of healthy bath with clean water, maintenance of sound health with nutritional diet.
Dr. Sitikantha Banerjee from AIIMS Jammu delivered lecture to 25 tribal students on health &personal hygiene related issues who had come from remote areas from the tribal belts of Reasi District of JK-UT at Jagti Campus of IIT Jammu on November 24/2023.
It was one of the sessions of three day residential program for tribal children organized by IIT Jammu.
The students were predominately from Bakarwal tribe. Social activists of local tribal belts also accompanied the students. The students were trained on hand hygiene, hand washing technique, cough etiquette and oriented on locally endemic diseases.
The Departments of Tribal Affairs, Department of Health, J&K UT, AIIMS Jammu, IIT Jammu and the Sarpanch of Sojawan Panchayat actively supported and participated in the program.