MISC : ADVOCACY

    Indian National Congress was born to put forth ideas of people. Earlier it was a tooth less body that made resolutions on public welfare. But these ultimately gave us Independence. Story 2.During practice we realized that a maternity leave of six months will enable mothers to breast feed babies for longer time and this will improve child survival. So at a plenary session in IAP annual conference at Bangalore.

Dr. Hemant Joshi put forth the idea of maternity leave for 6 months. Then at Hydrabad IAP annual general body meeting held during the annual IAP conference, Dr. Hemant Joshi and Dr. Archana Joshi proposed that IAP should recommend maternity leave for 6 months.Some members felt that instead of giving maternity leave of 6 months people will prefer to terminate women and give jobs to men. Respected Dr. Ramesh Potdar intervened and said that a breast feeding resolution should not fail at a IAP meeting. He suggested that the proposal be studied by the committee of experts in breast feeding. This group later in the year had a full day meeting. It had stalwarts like the then IAP president Dr. Kumtha, Dr. R.K. Anand etc. This committee recommended that Maternnity leave should be of 6 months. In the subsequent annual IAP annual general body meeting at Nagpur, on the recommendations of this committee, IAP unanimously passed the the resolution that maternity leave should be of 6 months. Within one week Haryana and Punjab state governments announced and granted maternity leave for 6 months to their staff.
We printed leaflets asking for Maternnity leave should be of 6 months, and gave them to all news papers and unions.Dr. Uday Bodhankar and many other pediatritians worked to sensitize politicians and beaurocrats on this issue.
When 5th pay commission of central government came, unions asked for increasing maternity leave from 3 months to 6 months. During negotiations the government agreed to give maternity leave of four and a half months.And parliament passed it.
Now all nationalized banks, Life Insurance corporation of India etc. give a maternity leave of 6 months. It is learnt that Times of India group also gives a maternity leave of 6 months.
Inference: A small resolution at IAP changed the maternity leave for numerous mothers reducing the child morbidity and mortality.
Learn from this experience.Bring about the necessary changes to make India a better place for children and pediatritians. .