Expert Level Meeting held between Director And CEO AIIMS Raipur & Chief of Nutrition UNICEF India held at SCoE4N

All India Institute Of Medical Sciences, Raipur

The State Center of Excellence for Nutrition Interventions (SCoE4N) at Department of Pediatrics, AIIMS Raipur is relentlessly striving to support the Department of Woman and Child Development (DWCD) in implementation of community based program for the management of malnutrition namely "Hamar Swasthya Laika". Along with streamlining the facility based management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM), establish preventive strategies like promotion of Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) practices and reinforcement of Anemia Mukt Bharat with support from National Health Mission (NHM) and UNICEF Raipur. The center is functional under the adroit leadership and guidance of Lt Gen Ashok Jindal (Retd.), Executive Director & CEO, AIIMS Raipur. His rich and decades long experience in the field of community medicine has shaped the strategies of this center which is paving way too successfully with this program. In this continuation, on 24th March 2025, Marie-Claude Desilets, Chief Nutrition, UNICEF India met Director of AIIMS Raipur to discuss future scope of the program and observe day to day functioning of the center. Dr. Anil Kumar Goel, Program Director & HOD Pediatrics, AIIMS Raipur, Dr. Aparna Deshpande, Nutrition Specialist, UNICEF Raipur, Dr. Prafulla Ranjan Mishra, Nutrition Officer, UNICEF Delhi and Dr. Mahendra Prajapati, Nutrition Officer, UNICEF Raipur along with two UNICEF volunteer were also part of the meeting. Innovative strategies like Tele-monitoring of Nutrition Rehabilitation Centers (NRCS), Tele-mentoring of NHM counsellors, comprehensive counselling model and demonstration of energy dense, low cost recipes were acknowledged. Visiting team also interacted with the mothers and caregivers during their visit to SMART Unit & IYCF Skill Lab. Affirmative response from the mothers and their families were admired by the team. Chief Nutrition, UNICEF India expressed her interest in the possibility of replicating such comprehensive counselling model to other places through process documentation and dissemination. Team appreciated the multi-pronged strategy adopted by SCoE4N and the persistent guidance of Director & CEO, AIIMS Raipur. Efforts of the SCoE4N’s Program Director and his team were recognized and praised with a hope of scaling up such a holistic model for the entire country.