Ammas gift to girls, mothers to Promote Health

CHENNAI: Giving effect to the announcement of Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa,  made during the budget session of the State Assembly recently, the Tamil Nadu government will soon implement a pioneering scheme — distribution of sanitary napkins free of cost to adoloscent girls, new mothers in government hospitals and women in prisons.  The government has allocated `44.21 crore for this first-of-its kind initiative in the country.The initiative is aimed at inculcating healthy practices among adolescent girls and in ensuring reproductive health of women in the long run. This scheme is expected to go a long way in protecting the girls from many infectious diseases and in avoiding infertility later.Under the new scheme, each girl would be issued a ‘health diary’ in which information about the height, weight, iron content in blood, etc would be noted down and their health index would be monitored throughout the year. To prevent anemia among adolescent girls, an iron tablet and a folic acid tablet would be given every week while a tablet for deworming would be distributed once in six months.A committee headed by State Health Secretary will monitor the implementation of this new scheme.The CM had already announced that 41 lakh adolescent girls in rural areas between the age group of 10 and 19, seven lakh new mothers and around 700 women prisoners would be benefited by this scheme.  Now, 108 napkins would be given to each adoloscent girl in six instalments in a year.   For students of government schools, napkins would be distributed through teachers while other adoloscent girls can get them from the anganwadi workers of  Integrated Children Development Centres and the Village Health Centres. Prisoners would also get the napkins.New mothers admitted to all government hospitals, primary or village health centres would get seven bags each (42 napkins).