Managing sick newborns remains challenging in resource-poor settings, especially at the primary care level. Recognition of danger signs by families, appropriate and timely care seeking, assessment by non-specialists, adherence to treatment recommendations, and broken referral systems are a few of the challenges and perhaps only relate to a supra-level understanding. 
In an implementation research at Shivrajpur Block of Kanpur where Community Empowerment Lab (CEL) is working with the district health system to establish a care coordination model and operationalize primary care facilities (Ayushman Arogy Mandir, PHC, and CHCs) to manage sick young Infant at primary care facilities when the referral is not feasible to specialized care facilities/ tertiary facilities. We were thrilled to share that CHOs and Medical officers at the primary care level managed 50 sick newborns at primary facilities in the last three months who could not reach pediatricians. 

While the efforts by the health system just have begun to show their impact, there are many stories to be told on confidence building, care-seeking behavior change models, and a story of how a care coordination system has evolved and been utilized by the community. We aspire to shape our the learnings for co-creating District and State level models ! And of course, we are excited to see how our experience of Kanpur can inform and help in crafting SANKALP_ Varanasi, the flagship neonatal mortality reduction implementation research effort by ICMR and GoUP Saumya Dwivedi Dr. Pankaj Kumar Gyanu Dev Alice Arya Dr. Atreyo Mondal Priya Chaturvedi Yatharth Srivastava Madhuri Dixit Amlin Shukla Simanta Mohanty, Ph.D.

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