GUIDELINE TO CONDUCT PUBLIC HEARING AT BLOCK AND DISTRICT LEVEL

Maternal mortality shows the greatest disparity among developing countries including India. A woman’s risk of dying from treatable or preventable complications of pregnancy and childbirth over the course of her lifetime is 1 in 22, compared to 1 in 7,300 in developed regions. Millennium Development Goal (MDG)5 is the MDG the least likely to be met. Maternal mortality is a critical indicator of the state of a health system. In India, every year 56,000 women dies due to pregnancy and childbirth related complications, thereby contributing to 19% of global maternal deaths. One woman dies every ten minutes from complications related to pregnancy and child birth in India.The situation in India is not consistent across all states with several central and eastern states having significantly higher neonatal and maternal mortality rates than other regions. Currently, India’s MMR is 212 per 100,000 live births (SRS 2007-2009), a reduction from 254 in 2004-6 but a long road remains to reach India’s MDG5 target of 109 by 2015.

Public Hearing

A Public Hearing is a process in which interested parties/ stakeholders and any other persons who may be affected by the result have the opportunity to make submissions, ask questions or register objections to a development application or other matter. A Public Hearing body is comprised of elected officials or citizen members, facilitators, women, ANMs/ AWWs, community members and all those who are directly or indirectly involved or affected by the issue. The Public Hearing shall be arranged in a systematic, time bound and transparent manner ensuring widest possible participation of the decision makers, health service providers, the frontline health workers and most importantly, the beneficiaries of maternal health policies i.e. pregnant and lactating women

The public hearing is a major component of accountability initiative by White Ribbon Alliance for Safe Motherhood, India in the implementation plan and some activities are planned to be organized around public hearing. A public hearing gives a platform to the women to speak directly to the local decision makers on her problems, experiences (both positive and negative) and concerns.

Why conduct a public hearing ?

Public hearings are conducted to

  • open or re-open discussions about the safe motherhood issue
  • communicate and clarify needs
  • communicate a sense of community concern about an issue
  • increase community awareness about the issue
  • attract media attention
  • find a solution to a community problem or issue

The sequence of activities with details thereto is as follows-

  1. Rally
  2. Public Hearing
  3. Public Meeting
  4. Press Meet
  1. Rally

A rally is organized on the same day of the public hearing and before the public hearing. This rally will involve women from different parts of the district/block to attract public attention on the issue of safe motherhood. It will facilitate community mobilization for averting maternal deaths, sensitization of different stakeholders on ensuring maternal health services, mobilization of people’s support, invitation of media attention etc. The women will march ahead in a rally from the starting point of district head quarter or the district hospital to the location where public hearing will be organized. The women will be leading the rally with messages on safe motherhood. The CDMO/Collector/ Elected Representatives will also be requested to participate in the rally.

  1. Public Hearing

Public hearing can amplify the voice of women and helps in identifying critical implementation gaps. At the same time women gets a platform to raise their voices and in a public hearing first, an ambient environment is created to enable them to have access to facilities and process and then they are empowered to raise their voice, invite concerns of the service providers, media and elected representatives. The public hearing will be attended by

  • Women from different locations of the district
  • ASHA, AWW, ANM, SHG leaders and other Community Based Organizations
  • Service providers like PHC doctors, BPOs, Nurses
  • Elected representatives like ZillaParisad Chairperson and members, MLAs, MP, PanchayataSamiti Chairman, Gram Panchayat Sarapanch etc
  • District administration like Collector, Sub-Collector, ADM, DSWO
  • District Health Administration like CDMO, ADMO (FW), DPM
  • Media representatives

Process:

An ideal sitting arrangement during Public Hearing must be made. This will make the process more interactive and help the women to maintain eye-to-eye contact with the stakeholders and participants. An example is below:

Before starting the public hearing, the representative from WRA state with welcome address will brief all on the objectives of Public Hearing and share mission and vision of WRA-state alliance. Then the public hearing will be facilitated by a group of professionals with clear understanding on the issue and the facilitator will initiate the process by sharing the district specific issues and entitlements under different plans and schemes on safe motherhood. The facilitator will initiate the discussions and will help in identification of problems pertaining to maternal and child health in the district where public hearing is scheduled. District Health Administration and service providers chaired by Collector of the district and others on the dias will be invited to clarify on the doubts and give their comments updating the participants on the maternal child healthprogramme implementation.

The documentation team will write all the process, discussions, issues raised and responses. The process will continue for 1-2 hours. A detailed reporting guideline is provided at the end of the document. The media and elected representatives will be welcomed to put their queries and remarks on the implementation process of MCH and gaps identified in different places.

3. Public meeting

The public hearing will be followed by a public meeting to seek commitments from the guests like Elected Representatives, District Administration and CDMO and call for action for safe motherhood in the district. The suggested seating arrangement in the public meeting is same

The commitments received/ actions decided to be taken from different speakers in the public meeting will be documented and shared at the end with vote of thanks by concerned district nodal agency.

  1. Press meet:

The print and media plays an important part in promoting safe motherhood campaign by disseminating the information on safe motherhood and success stories on the lives saved. Therefore, it will be very fruitful to involve the local media in the campaign. The media representatives will be briefed on the district specific maternal child health gaps, the public hearing process and the outcome/ commitments in a press meet after the public meeting. The district/block WRA member will prepare a press note in the context of initiatives to address issues for necessary circulation among the media people for wider dissemination further.

Participant’s coverage:

  • women from different locations of the districts including SHG leaders, panchayat representatives.
  • MP, MLAs, ZillaParisadMemebers and Chairperson, PanchayatSamiti Chair persons, Sarapanches, Collector, ADM, Sub-collector.
  • Service providers like CDMO, ADMO (FW), DPM, Medical Officers, Gynecologists, DSWO, BPO, ANM, ASHA, AWW
  • Media Representatives of the district
  • Alliance members and other NGOs, development partners working on safe motherhood.

Preparatory meeting & Identification of issues

Preparatory meeting will be conducted prior to public hearing to identify the issues that will be addresses during the public hearing. The district coordinating agency will involve district health administration and media during the preparatory meeting to enhance their participation in the process. In this preparatory meeting the planning and proposed agenda for public hearing will be finalized and the date for public hearing will be fixed with distribution of responsibilities among the partners.

Do’s

  1. Get a prior appointment for public hearing date from MP, MLAs, ZillaParisad Members and Chairperson, PanchayatSamiti Chair persons, Sarapanches, Collector, ADM, Sub-collector and Service providers
  2. Invite the women and inform them in advance about the date of public hearing
  3. Prepare the safe motherhood messages for rally
  4. Get a permission from police, traffic police, ambulance
  5. Invite Media
  6. Prepare a press release
  7. The venue should have a provision of safe drinking water
  8. Facilitator’s role is not to direct the conversation, but to align the public hearing with its objectives
  9. Use the forum to find solutions to the problems
  10. Do a separate media registration and handover media kits, collect thir information and send press release

Don’ts

  1. Do not make it a fault finding and blaming event
  2. Do not divert the conversation to any other issue
  3. Do not rush into questions and answers directly before welcome, sharing objectives and giving information

PUBLIC HEARING REPORTING FORMAT

WRA State - ______

  1. Name of the District:
  2. Name of block (if applicable):
  3. Name and address of coordinating agency/ implementing partner:
  4. Date of Public Hearing:
  5. Place/ Venue of Public Hearing:
  6. Details of Guests/ Resource persons attended; (add more rows if needed)

Sl
No. / Name / Designation
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
  1. Total Number of participants:

Sl
No. / Participants / Number
01. / Women from different blocks
02. / Men from different blocks
03. / Media persons
04. / Elected Representatives/ PRI
05. / Service Providers, ASHA, ANM, AWW, TBA etc.
06. / Local administrative staff/ officers
  1. Who flagged off Rally?
  2. Starting point of Rally and distance covered
  3. Name and designation of Inaugurator of Public hearing:
  4. Name and designation of Facilitator of Public Hearing:
  5. How many questions came up?
  6. Give details of questions asked and answers given (add more rows if needed)

Sl
No. / Question in details / Who asked? Name and place / Who answered?
Name and designation / What commitment/ steps to be taken
  1. Give a brief summary of Public Hearing with its impact seen
  1. Are any media representatives participated? Give details
  1. Give the commitment details shown by ER/ Guests:
  1. Give main quotation of Guests during Public hearing/ public meeting

Sl
No. / Name / Quotes from speech
  1. Was a press briefing organized?
  2. How many media representatives were briefed?
  3. What is the media response? Give details with clippings

Sl
No. / Name of Media (Include both electronics and print media) / Date/ Time of coverage
  1. Any other information if you feel important
  1. Enclosures
  2. the Press Release
  3. Photographs
  4. Testimonies of women
  5. Quotes of guests/resource persons

Report prepared by :

Name

Signature

Place:

Date: