Under Dr. M. S. Sagar’s leadership, Ratlam’s District Hospital raised postpartum family planning uptake by 37 percent.
The District Hospital in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh, is on a mission to expand comprehensive family planning services. Before collaborating with The Challenge Initiative (TCI), the city struggled with low adoption of postpartum family planning (PPFP) services. That began to change when Dr. M. S. Sagar, the Chief Medical and Health Officer (CMHO), stepped in with targeted efforts to improve uptake.
With a clear, action-oriented approach, Dr. Sagar initiated changes that started transforming the district hospital. Speaking about his priorities, he explained:
We are answerable to the people and must make every effort to serve them with quality healthcare. After taking charge as a CMHO, I ensured that the entire medical and managerial staff was aligned with my goal. There were challenges, but my aim was clear: to strengthen service delivery through efficiency and accountability. By ensuring the availability of human resources, family planning commodities, and ongoing supervision, I helped the team believe, ‘we can achieve this.’
I prioritized three Ms: meetings, maintenance, and monitoring. By conducting regular meetings twice a month with staff and healthcare workers, we were able to assess the progress and take timely corrective actions. Equally important was maintaining the standard protocols set by the Government of India, which were reinforced through regular trainings and workshops to strengthen the counselling skills of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives, Accredited Social Health Activists, and doctors on PPFP. The third element, monitoring, ensured collaboration through continuous assessment and data analysis. With each step, we inched closer to building a stronger, more responsive family planning system.
Over time, healthcare workers felt better equipped and more confident in their roles. Dr. Sagar described how this momentum began to shift public perception of PPFP and family planning services:
The real turning point came with the collaboration of a dedicated team that brought both expertise and high-impact interventions. Our partnership with TCI India provided crucial technical support to strengthen PPFP services. The team offered on-ground, hands-on assistance in streamlining data systems, facilitating trainings, and supporting community mobilization through ASHAs and ANMs. This collective effort transformed low PPFP uptake into a remarkable 37% increase.
These changes turned PPFP from a one-off effort into standard practice – reliable, client-centered services the city can sustain and scale.
