The UT Administration will soon conduct a study on Pre-marital Health Counselling (PMHC) for adolescents in schools and colleges of the Union Territory of Chandigarh.
Rajesh Jogpal, Director, UT Department of Social Welfare on Friday informed that a study on PMHC will be conducted in colleges and schools of Chandigarh.
In this regard, the Women & Child Helpline under the aegis of Department of Social Welfare, along with the Government Medical College and Hospital Sector-32, organised a workshop on Premarital Health Counseling (PMHC) of Adolescents at Asha Kiran, Sector – 46 here.
At the workshop, Jogpal talked about the importance of Premarital Health Counseling.
Dr Sonia Puri (Associate Professor-cum-Project Coordinator, Department of Community Medicine, GMCH-32) gave an introductory session about PMHC.
She enlightened about PMHC that it is a new concept that has been adopted by many countries like Arab & UAE. It is a sort of educational awareness/therapy for adolescents about various issues like anaemia, contraceptive measures, genetic diseases, STIs, haemoglobinopathies, cancers etc, so that they have disease free life and healthy progeny, she said.
Sonia informed that adolescents comprise of 30 per cent of the population and they are the candidates who should be sensitized/made aware of the above mentioned issues.
The workshop was attended by counselors and staff Nurses of Social Welfare Department.
During the session, Dr Anita Tahlan (Associate Professor, Department of Haemotology, GMCH-32) emphasized that around 80 per cent of females in India have anaemia. In Punjab, Haemoglobinopathies especially Thalassemia is very common and adequate measures should be taken before marriage by getting screened for this to have normal children.
The sessions on sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and infertility, contraceptives and genetic counseling, vaccines in todays era like HPV, Rubella Vaccine were also conducted during the workshop.