The Indian Institute of Public Health and Freedom from Hunger in association with Microcredit Summit Campaign released their report titled ‘Integrated Health and Microfinance in India: Harnessing the Strengths of Two Sectors to Improve Health and Alleviate Poverty’ in New Delhi on Thursday.

The report was released by member of Planning Commission Sayeeda Hameed who said that health and microfinance were two tools which if linked together would bring about enormous benefit for the people in general and women in particular.

“Integration of health and microfinance is a good thing. I saw women receive cheques from Vimo Seva in Ahmedabad which went a long way in alleviating suffering,” said Hameed.

Giving the example of the film ‘Gangs of Wasseypur,’ Hameed said that the first scene of the movie showed a mother dying after giving birth. She added that the linking of health and microfinance would help a long way in preventing such deaths. Adding that public health was grossly being neglected, Hameed said she hoped this initiative would bring about a sea change in people’s thinking.

Viji Das of Friends of Women’s World Banking stressed on the need for linking microfinance with health and said the advantages would be enormous. “Earlier we had tried to give microfinance loans for health reasons. But it did not pick up,” said Das adding that she hoped the marriage between microfinance and health would lead to lesser mortality rates thereby improving productivity of the person.

Kathleen Stack of Freedom From Hunger said that it was a good sign that such an initiative was being taken up in India and added that sadly, despite being American, she was disappointed that the United States had not picked up any initiative to provide healthcare to all.

DSK Rao of the Microcredit Summit Campaign said the NGO Bandhan had done well in the area of microfinance and that he hoped the report would help mould people’s thinking.

The report quotes Multidimensional Poverty Index which estimates that about 54% of India lives in poverty with large variations from state to state. The report states grave facts such as 40.4 percent of children in India were underweight and 78.9 percent are anemic. Maternal anemia, too, remains rampant.

The report places emphasis on maternal health and claims 78,000 women die in childbirth. The report further claims that “Women in India are three times more likely than men to go without treatment for long-term ailments.”

The report states the work done by various NGOs in the field of healthcare. Ekjut, an NGO based in Jharkhand and Odisha managed to reduce neonatal mortality rates by 32 percent, reduction in maternal mortality by 20 percent and a 57 percent reduction in postnatal depression. The NGO used games, puppet shows and story-telling to help educate women.

Another NGO Equitas set up telemedicine centres in three of its branch offices in association with Apollo hospital. They hope to soon provide this facility in all their 300 offices.

The report also states various other initiatives undertaken by various organisations to help the rural poor.