Institute of Health Management Pachod (IHMP)

The Institute of Health Management, Pachod (IHMP) aims at the holistic development of the individual, family and community and is deeply committed to the upliftment of marginalised groups. Within the broad mandate of reaching the most disadvantaged groups, it strives towards the health and development of women and children. The Institute implements its programmes through organising and mobilising communities toward self-reliance and sustainability. Organising children and adolescents is a part of this mandate, which has been operationalised as health and development programmes for children, implemented by them and through them. From humble beginnings to international recognition, IHMP has had many milestones. In 1976, a young medical graduate started work in a 5-bed hospital at Pachod, a village in Aurangabad district of Marathwada that had experienced the worst famine of the century. IHMP pioneered the training of traditional birth attendants known as, ‘Dais’ and was the first organization in the country to implement a programme on maternal and neonatal health through them. The programme got scaled up at the National level. With an aim to provide public health services to deprived sections of society, since its inception, IHMP has worked on maternal and neonatal health, malnutrition, sanitation, communicable and non-communicable diseases, life skills education for adolescent girls, reproductive and child health services and gender sensitization among young men and boys, in villages and urban slums. In 1986, IHMP started a training centre to impart hands-on skills in public health. By 1990, it had established itself as an internationally and nationally recognized public health training centre. Over 8000 non-profit and Government health functionaries from India, South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and African countries have undergone training at IHMP. In 1998, IHMP identified the need to work more closely with adolescent girls, to achieve its objective of reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. The life-skills program for adolescent girls was conceptualized and begun during this year with the aim of delaying age at marriage. In 2003, acknowledging that social norms take years to alter and that girls would continue to get married at a young age, the organization conceptualized its initiative to work with married adolescent girls and their spouses, through a health-based program.