Kayakalp awards

J P Nadda, the Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare, is seeking participation of NGOs in ‘Kayakalp,’ an initiative of the Health Ministry to encourage public health facilities in the country to work towards standards of excellence to help healthcare facilities stay clean and hygienic.

The Minister launched a national initiative for awards to Swacch Public Health Facilities ‘Kayakalp’ on May 15 under the National Health Mission (NHM). Kayakalp promotes a clean environment in public health facilities, which are essential to the dignity, comfort and speedy recovery of the patients.

Five awards will be given under this scheme: Best two district hospitals in each state (Best district hospital in small states), best two community health centres/sub district hospitals (limited to one in small states) and one primary health centre in every district.

Based on the set criterion, prize winners will receive a cash award with a citation. First rank and second rank awardees at district level hospital will get Rs 50 lakh and Rs 20 lakh respectively. While Rs 15 lakh and Rs 10 lakh are proposed for community health centres/sub district hospitals for the same criteria and winner at primary health centre will get Rs 2 lakh under this scheme.

Certificate of Commendation plus cash award would also be given to such facilities that score over 70%, but do not make it to the list of top two/one in a particular year, which is proposed as Rs 3 lakh for district hospital, Rs. 1 lakh for community health centres/sub district hospitals and Rs 50, 000 for primary health centre.

The awards would be distributed based on the performance of the facility on these parameters- sanitation and hygiene, infection control, hospital upkeep, waste management, community participation assessment would be done sequentially through a three tier system - internal assessment followed by peer assessment and then external assessment.