Operation Asha


Operation Asha is a non-profit organisation, established in 2005 that works primarily in the domain of Gender, Food & Nutrition, Health and Child & Youth Development. Its primary office is in New Delhi, Delhi.


Name

 Operation Asha

Works on

 Provides easy access to treatment for tuberculosis and health services to the marginalised community residing in urban slums and rural villages

Type

 Non-profit

Sub Type

 Society

Website

 http://www.opasha.org

Sector(s)

 Child & Youth Development Health Food & Nutrition Other Gender

Start Year

 2005

Number of Employees

 100+

Government ID

 DL/2009/0015446

Registration ID

 S-54262

Projects in States

 Bihar Chandigarh Delhi Gujarat Haryana Himachal Pradesh Madhya Pradesh Punjab Rajasthan Uttar Pradesh Uttarakhand

Projects in Districts

 Mewat Gwalior Amritsar Bathinda Faridkot Fatehgarh Sahib Ferozepur Gurdaspur More Hoshiarpur Jalandhar Kapurthala Ludhiana Mansa Moga Muktsar Nawanshahr Patiala Rupnagar Sangrur Alwar Jaipur Budaun Gorakhpur Jyotiba Phule Nagar Moradabad Rampur Haridwar

Overview

Operation ASHA works towards bringing tuberculosis treatment and health services to the marginalised communities through the usage of biometric technology and delivering treatment to the door-steps of the patients.

The organisation has established designated treatment centres within the rural and slums areas with an aim to make the treatment easily accessible to the patients. For taking TB treatment the patients simply have to visit a designated centre daily and take medicine in the presence of a trained worker.

Further, in order to reach more patients, Operation ASHA utilises space in the premises of local doctors, chemist stores, temples, tea shops etc. to set up treatment centres that are easily accessible and hires locally trained youth who work as Community Health Workers (CHWs). The health workers also guide families about TB to avoid stigmatisation and assist in full treatment to prevent drug resistant TB.

The biometric strategy used by the organisation is called e-Compliance Suite which is a combination of 3 technologies namely e-Compliance, e-Detection, and e-Alert System. Together, these technological tools have helped OperationASHA achieve an extremely low error-level of less than 3% in TB and treatment success rate of 89%.

Operation ASHA is working in 6 states which include Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha and Himachal Pradesh, in a total of 14 cities/districts through a total of 217 centres established in more than 5000 slums which on an average treat 50 patients per centre annually.

Primary Office Address

 D-156, Sarita Vihar

City

 New Delhi

State

 Delhi

Major Activities

Major tasks and accomplishments (as reported by the NGO):
Operation ASHA serves a population of 1.5 million slum-dwellers in five states and is expanding rapidly. It has devised a new patient-friendly system for TB treatment. The treatment is taken to the doorsteps of the disadvantaged. Treatment centers are established within the community, e.g. in small shops, huts and temples. Centers are located a mile from each other and operated by community providers for 12-16 hours a day. Thus, patients can procure the medicine conveniently, without wasting time, spending money on transport or losing wages. Easy accessibility is supplemented with a robust educational campaign, which is carried out by highly trained counselors, who are also responsible for tracking and eliminating default. All employees are recruited from within the community. So our message is accepted readily. Counselors screen every person and ensure that every suspect undergoes sputum test. Counselors are paid performance linked incentive salaries, which spurs them to do well.Operation ASHA works very closely with Revised National TB Control Programme and uses drugs, hospitals and diagnostic facilities provided by it. Government officials are encouraged to visit the centers and provide feedback, which helps maintain quality. RNTCP also provides a grant under Slum Scheme provided for in NGO Guidelines so each center becomes self-sustaining within two years.Our model has achieved excellent results. In South Delhi where Operation ASHA is a major force, detection rate has increased by 78%. Default is down to nearly 3%, many times less than usual. Thus, Operation ASHA has turned the tap off, preventing MDR. Ken Castro, Assistant Surgeon General and Director, TB Elimination, CDC, USA found our work to be ��_��_��_truly remarkable��_��.High quality does not mean high costs. Operation ASHA practices stringent cost control. The cost of treating a patient for the entire therapy of average seven months is only $15 = $2 a month approximately. The ��_��_��_social return on investment��_�� is 22500%. Our investment is matched 25 times by our partners. Operation ASHA has tied up with Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, which will conduct a randomized control trial, which are considered gold-standard in research. It will assess the impact of Operation ASHA in slum communities. Research department of Microsoft has taken up development of bio-metric devices for Operation ASHA. With these devices, it will be able to track each dose taken by each patient and further improve our results. Operation ASHA��_��s model has been appreciated world-wide. Prajnopaya Foundation, which is based in Boston, signed an agreement in June 2009 whereby Prajnopaya is raising funds for TB control in India and Operation ASHA has the responsibility of executing the program. Prajnopaya supports the vision of its chief patron, Nobel Laureate His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Having virtually eliminated default, established a cost-effective and replicable model, Operation ASHA is expanding rapidly. It plans to establish 1000 DOTS centers by 2012, which will serve a population of 70 million. It is looking for funding and partnerships to achieve this goal.

Facebook

 https://www.facebook.com/operationasha/

LinkedIn

 https://www.linkedin.com/company/operationasha/

Twitter

 https://twitter.com/OperationASHA

Income Tax ID Verification

 Verified

FCRA Reg. #

 231661014

Contributions/Source(s)

 NGO DARPAN, Government of India (Learn more)

Contact

 Send a direct message to Operation Asha