Post Date: Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Maternal health in India is in a state of crisis, particularly in Jharkhand. Outside of Africa, India has one of the highest maternal mortality rates (MMR) in the world. An Indian woman dies in childbirth every eight minutes; her lifetime risk of maternal death is one out of seventy. Rural communities and minority women are especially vulnerable to maternal complications and mortality. In response its abysmal MMR, the Indian Government has created myriad schemes to address the factors that contribute to maternal death.
Godda district is a rural, tribal district in northeastern Jharkhand. Its total population is 1,311,382 and its literacy rate is 57.68%. In this context, a team of health activists went to the Godda district of Jharkhand to investigate the implementation of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), National Maternal Benefit Scheme (NMBS), Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), and Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) in villages served by the Poreyhat and Sunderpahari Community Health Centers (CHCs).
The high number of maternal and infant deaths in the district demonstrates that public health authorities have not effectively implemented these schemes. The fact-finders concentrated their work in two blocks: Sunderpaharj and Poraiyahat. There are on average 3,400 births per year in these two blocks of Godda District. From April to December 2011 health officials recorded 21 deaths for 2,550 births. The MMR for this period works out to 824, a rate on par with Chad, the country with the sixth highest MMR in the world.
These reports of Maternal Deaths have been sent to the Civil Secretary, the Deputy Director, and the State Mission Director of the NRHM. However, the government has taken few to reduce the MMR. In response to previous concerns about maternal health care in Jharkhand, the government established a free ambulance service in April 2011. The ambulances, however, are private cars and do not have medical equipment or trained medical staff. Moreover, local facilities frequently refer women to Bhagalpur Medical College in Bihar, the neighboring state. Government ambulances will not take patients across state lines. Accordingly, families pay private drivers to travel over 70 kilometers (over two hours) during medical emergencies.
Read on the full report here:
Contact Sarita Barpanda; sarita@hrln.org
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