The Mobile Nurse Mentoring Programme (AMANAT), Earned a Selection as a State Innovation in the Call to Action 2015

PATNA, India, October 14, 2015 /PRNewswire/ --

Reducing maternal and child mortality is among the most important goals of the National Rural Health Mission. At various global platforms, India has reaffirmed its commitment to make every effort towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. The Government of India, in keeping with its National Call to Action: Child Survival and Development, 2013 (an iteration of this commitment), has been working together with its development partners on the strategic roadmap for accelerating child survival and improving maternal health beyond 2015.

The Government of Bihar has already initiated targeted health interventions for effective execution of specified activities under the RMNCH+A 5x5 Matrix. In accordance, the AMANAT (also known as the Mobile Nurse Mentoring) programme, implemented by the CARE led State RMNCH+A Unit, is being up-scaled to 320 selected Public Health facilities of Bihar, in a phased manner, as a health innovation in the state, to build the capacity of nurses and ANMs to provide specialized and quality care to pregnant women and children.

Call To Action Summit 2015: 

The summit was co-hosted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India along with the Ministry of Health, Government of Ethiopia, USAID, UNICEF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Tata Trusts, and inaugurated by the Hon. Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on August 27th.

Bihar's AMANAT in Call to Action Summit 2015: 

The Mobile Nurse Mentoring programme (AMANAT) , earned a selection as a state innovation in the Call to Action 2015. This CARE innovation, first initiated in the state of Bihar, has successfully demonstrated its immense potential in skill building of on-duty nurses in handling and management of critical maternal and neo-natal complications.

AMANAT involves iterative training and incremental learning delivered through teams of graduate and post-graduate nurses to the cadre of nurses functioning at different Government Health Centres. The nurse mentors and trainers go one week each month to four Block PHCs for a period of six to eight months. Aided by lesson plans and different tools to effectively demonstrate new techniques, such teams ensure that the Grade A nurses and ANMs working in the Labour Rooms improve their clinical practises in order to prevent infections, competently handle normal deliveries and to effectively manage the most common maternal and neonatal emergencies.

Maternal and neonatal complications are simulated repeatedly under this programme, for the participants to practise the treatment and management of the critical cases so that risks are avoided on actual patients. Significantly, the AMANAT mentoring process is based on the "learning by doing" theory of adult learning techniques, and emphasizes to learn on the job while handling women in labour and the new-borns. Further, by practising their newly learnt skills during repeated simulations of obstetric and neonatal emergencies, the participants are provided with opportunities to master their hands-on skills of the subject.

Impacting the Health Indicators: 

AMANAT Mobile Nurse Mentoring programme has proven effective in rapid lowering of maternal and neonatal deaths by ratcheting up the clinical skills and practice of nurses in the Labour Rooms of PHCs to modern day expectations of Emergency Obstetric and Neonatal Care by bringing the nursing school to their own clinical settings.

After a successful pilot in 80 Public Health facilities of Bihar, its learnings are now being up-scaled to 320 more Block PHCs. With intensive focus on the practical knowledge and hands-on skill development of the nurses, it has been evidenced to have sustainably changed the Labour Room behaviour and practices especially in areas of Infection Control and the Active Management of Third Stage of Labour.

AMANAT Mobile Nurse Mentoring programme, a collaborative initiative of the Health Department, Govt. of Bihar, and implemented by CARE SRU its development partners, having evidenced to produce positive impacting results in selected 80 PHCs of Bihar, carries the potential of generating same results, when executed at scale and replicated throughout the state. 

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