Certificate in Multi Purpose Health Worker

The concept of Multipurpose Health Workers (Male and Female) was introduced in
1974 for the delivery of preventive and promotive health care services to the
community at the level of Sub-Health Centres (SHCs), the most peripheral health
facilities, covering 5000 population in plains and 3000 population in hilly/ tribal/
difficult areas. The Multipurpose Health Worker (Male) is the grass root health
functionary for the control of communicable diseases including Malaria, TB, Leprosy,
Water Borne Diseases, as well as Environmental Sanitation, detection of disease
outbreaks and their control, health education etc. The non availability of MPHW
(Male) across the states has been one of the critical issues in implementation of
national programmes including National Vector Borne Disease Control Program
(NVBDCP), Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), and National
Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP). The worst impact has been on malaria
control. The malaria workers were originally supported by the Central Government,
and the States had to take them over once the National Malarial Eradication
Programme entered into maintenance phase. These malaria workers and other basic
health workers, vaccinators, family planning workers etc. were later on designated as
MPHW (Male) on introduction of Multipurpose Health Workers Scheme as per the
recommendation of Kartar Singh Committee (1973). They were given a smaller
population to meet the community health needs by establishing health linkages with
the local community.