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How India is failing its infants long before they arrive at hospitals

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  • How India is failing its infants long before they arrive at hospitals

    Comment: A comprehensive, detailed report. Excerpts below, but follow the link at the end to read the whole piece. - Ro

    How India is failing its infants long before they arrive at hospitals
    Child death figures were routine for July and August, when infections peak and already overburdened hospitals are unable to cope
    Swagata Yadavar | IndiaSpend
    Last Updated at September 25, 2017 08:23 IST

    Soon after the death of 70 infants in a tertiary care hospital in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh (UP), made the headlines last month, similar stories began to pour in from across the country. Ninety children were reported to have died in two months in Rajasthan?s Banswara district hospital; in the month of August alone, 55 children had died in Maharashtra?s Nashik Civil Hospital and 49 in UP?s Farrukhabad District Hospital.

    Tragic as these deaths were, they were hardly unusual, IndiaSpend found on visiting half a dozen primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare centres in Jharkhand, another state that reported numerous infant deaths. Doctors told IndiaSpend that such seemingly high child death figures were routine for the months of July and August, when infections peak and already overburdened hospitals are unable to cope.
    ...

    The paediatrics unit needed 11 full-time doctors, Bhushan said, but had managed with five since 2010 when two professors had retired, one had died and another was transferred. ?There has been no effort to find their replacement, no advertisements have been placed,? one doctor told IndiaSpend, not wishing to be named.

    Over a decade after the six-bed NICU was set up in 2005, enough nurses and doctors have not been appointed. The NICU often admits 22 to 24 babies?up to three to a bed. ?Most doctors are working extremely hard to save lives, but we are over-worked,? the doctor said.
    ...
    The sub-centre in Palasbani village in East Singhbhum district, of which Jamshedpur is a part, is housed in a new, two-storeyed building with a neat hand-pump at the front. On the day IndiaSpend visited, it was locked?as usual, the villagers said. ?Why did they build the sub-centre?? one villager said. ?Earlier our children played in the grounds there, now it is just wasted space.?

    In India?s primary healthcare ecosystem, a sub-centre is the first point of contact for a community and typically caters to 2,500-3,000 people. Government guidelines say each sub-centre should have one Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) and one health worker, preferably male. A doctor is supposed to visit the sub-centre at least once a month.
    ...
    In contrast, East Singhbhum civil surgeon Kala Chand Munda told IndiaSpend, the district needs 141 doctors but has 61. Two-thirds of the 243 sub-centres in the district do not have facilities to deliver babies, so that 86 sub-centres with facilities to deliver babies serve a population of 2.3 million?one sub-centre for 26,744 people.
    ...
    While IndiaSpend found widespread under-capacity in most healthcare facilities it visited in Jharkhand, a budget brief by the non-profit Centre for Policy Research shows the state had not utilised 60% of its approved budget for the National Rural Health Mission in 2014-15. In 2013-14, it had not utilised 30% of its allocation.
    ...

    Twitter: @RonanKelly13
    The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

  • #2
    75,493 infant deaths in India from April to July, 5,547 of them from Maharashtra
    Madhya Pradesh, with 9,269 children aged till 5, recorded the highest deaths followed by Uttar Pradesh with 8,440 deaths.

    By: Express News Service | Mumbai | Updated: October 3, 2017 4:21 am

    At least 75,493 infant deaths were recorded across India in the first four months of this financial year (till July), and 5,547 of them were from Maharashtra, data received under the Right to Information show. Eighty four per cent (64,093) of these children died aged less than one year. Madhya Pradesh, with 9,269 children aged till 5, recorded the highest deaths followed by Uttar Pradesh with 8,440 deaths. In Delhi, 1,635 children died this year. Gujarat recorded deaths of 6,755 children aged less than five.
    ...
    Twitter: @RonanKelly13
    The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.

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