Former AIISH director M. Jayaram advocated the need for reintroducing the system where speech therapists/assistants visit homes and offer services. “I advocate not only training a new breed of personnel, but also that they be peripatetic. Peripatetic assistants/therapists were in vogue in the U.K. in the middle of the last century. The therapists would visit homes and offer services. However, such a practice is a thing of the past now. I am advocating reinvention of this system,” he said.
He said the peripatetic assistants will move between PHCs, hospitals – private and public - within a predefined geographical boundary, carryout whatever kind of screening/testing the experts recommend soon after birth and once or twice later, collect the recommended biological samples, transport them to district hospitals for analysis, keep records, advice the parents, and make appropriate referrals to professionals/institutes when required.
Active assistance from anganwadi personnel/ASHAs is a requirement for the peripatetic assistants to screen every child within a small time window and to ensure that no baby/child is missed. “I believe this is a workable solution,” he said.
