Meena Shah (healthcare consultant)
Dr Meena Shah (born 1954) is an Indian healthcare consultant. She is the founder of Medico-Media - India's largest Health & Media company. Her Motto is "Health by Choice, not by Chance". She is also the Founder of Namaste LIFE - A Non Profit Organization (NGO) dedicated to positive health awareness and training.
Since 1992,she is an active proponent of proactive and holistic healthcare among individuals, women and children focussed on physical, mental, emotional and social well being. She inspires a healthy lifestyle; improving capabilities and productivity by small and specific lifestyle changes.
Life
Born into a business family, Dr Meena Shah finished her M.B.B.S and specialized in pediatrics. In 1977, she relocated to Zambia, where she served as a doctor in the Copper Mines Hospital in Kitwe. In 1978, she served in the children's cancer ward in Plymouth, UK and eventually settled in Ahmedabad, Gujarat - India, in 1980. From 1980 to 1992, she had a private practice as a pediatrician and was a visiting doctor in numerous hospitals such as Civil Hospital, V.S Hospital, Rajasthan hospital and more. Trained in pre-natal care, she started the first Prenatal and childbirth training classes in Ahmedabad. Since 1982, over 3000 women have benefited from her training. She has created and produced over 60 videos on health on varied topics such as Pregnancy Care Prenatal, Child Care Children, Heart Care, Diabetes, BP, Angioplasty, Asthma and much more. She also began healthy cooking classes - "Eat-Fit" for healthy cooking without sacrificing taste. This led to her creating numerous low calorie recipes for "Sweet & Low" low calorie sweetener, Amul dairy and others. Since 1992, she has used all her experiences and training to promote healthcare for people (Individuals, women and children) from all strata in the society via organized seminars, books, articles, videos, TV and other media.
In 2010, she founded Namaste Life Healthcare foundation for health awareness & promotion through training and media. Namaste LIFE has conducted hundreds of training for Women, Elderly, Children, Teachers, Pregnant Women, Social Workers, Govt Workers and more.
Work with Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation includes Reproductive and Child Health, Positive Health 1. Training Of Nurses and Doctors on Pregnancy Care, Antenatal Exercises, Childbirth, Postnatal care etc. 2. Videos and Presentations for AMC Website on Disease Care, Women's Health and more 3. Training of Children and Training of Teachers to promote healthy habits among AMC School Children 4. Training of Aanganwadi Workers, Dais etc. for Pregnancy care, nutrition, postnatal care etc. 5. Workshops on Water and Vector borne disease prevention in slums.
Work with Govt of Gujarat includes 1. Training Program for Teachers of KGBV Schools (Mahila Samakhya Gujarat) 2. Training of Trainers (Dais, Federation Leaders etc.) on Prenatal care, childbirth, postnatal care and infant care. 3. Numerous videos on health and various Govt Schemes available to the rural and urban poor
She is a regular guest speaker on TV channel TV9 as well
Achievements
- Conducted over 2500 workshops for occupational health and corporate Wellness in India for government, non-government and educational institutes. Highlights include preventive health care, safety, healthy working practices, ergonomics, fitness, nutrition, stress management, yoga, blood pressure care, diabetes care, heart care and occupational tailored to specific audiences.
- Provided health content - video, presentations and articles to the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation and the Ministry Of Health (India) websites
- Participated and coordinated more than 1500 TV shows on health (on Zee TV, E TV, and Doordarshan)
- Produced more than 60 VCDs and CD Roms for preventive health care, knee care, heart care and more
- Written hundreds of articles on healthcare, pregnancy care and child care in various publications
- Trained thousands of women in prenatal classes
- Works actively with pharmaceutical companies for health promotion and communication
- Conducted stress management seminars for over 20,000 displaced people in the aftermath of the earthquake in Gujarat in 2001
- Recipient of Award for Best Documentary on pregnancy “Matrutva Na Marge” by Government of Gujarat
- Set up a non-profit foundation Namaste Life Healthcare Foundation in 2010 for health awareness and promotion through training and media. Namaste Life conducted over 500 workshops in the first two years.