The Adolescent Reproductive and Sexual Health (ARSH) programme is being launchedAmritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Ferozepur, Bathinda and Sangrur in 1st phase . By 2010, all health institutions in the state will be covered under the programme.
adolescence (10-19 years)is the period of rapid physical growth which marked emotional, sexual and psychological changes in a child. Habits and behaviour picked up during adolescence had life-long impact and proper guidance was required to ensure good development and growth of an adolescent. Many adolescent boys and girls were sexually active, but lacked information and skills for protection. They had simple but pervasive crucial reproductive health needs like menstrual hygiene, contraception, safety from sexually transmitted disease and HIV etc, but communication gap existed between parents and other adults.Keeping in view specific needs of adolescents, the ARSH programme of the NRHM planned to raise awareness among this section regarding sexual and reproductive health issues, provide adequate health counselling and services for them and build a supportive environment to address their sexual and reproductive needs through the provision of Adolescent Friendly Health Services (AFHS).
According to thesources adolescents constituted nearly 22 per cent of the population and, therefore, ARSH had been taken as key strategy of the RCH-II programme under NRHM, which was to address the issues related to reproductive and sexual health and create favourable health seeking behaviour to achieve the objectives like delaying age of marriage, reduction in teenage pregnancies, lowering the incidence of RTI/STI/HIV etc.
All community, secondary and primary health centres of the six districts would provide special services for adolescents along with other routine services. This included services like contraceptive condom programming, management of menstrual disorders, menstrual hygiene, RTI/STI prevention, education, counselling services as well as immunisation of adolescent mothers.
