India uses misleading progress measures in obstetric care: HRW

New Delhi, Nov 4 : Human Rights Watch, a rights watchdog, today said India uses misleading progress measures and in fact is falling behind other countries in meeting international commitments to improve obstetric care.

''This is because India does not adequately monitor deaths and injuries in the critical period following childbirth and fix gaps in its health system and programme,'' Aruna Kashyap, researcher for the Women's Rights Division of Human Rights Watch (HRW) said.

''India should be a leader in protecting and monitoring women's sexual and reproductive health. Yet women continue to die entirely preventable deaths, and health authorities do not track down the reasons or do what is needed to rectify the health system,'' Ms Kashyap said.

''Though the Government promotes giving birth in public health facilities, using cash incentives for poor women, with the goal of providing access to skilled care, there is little systemic information on whether rural clinics and district hospitals are able to provide adequate and timely care to save women with pregnancy-related complications'' she said.

The government treats the huge increase of clinic-based deliveries as progress. ''They claim 20 million women gave birth in health facilities across India between mid-2005 and March 2009.

However, there is no reliable information on what percentage of these 20 million women actually survived after childbirth or suffered complications after being discharged,'' she pointed out.

''Skilled birth attendance and quality of care are two sides of the same coin,'' Ms Kashyap said.

''Unless India can draw up a time-bound plan of action for independent certification and monitoring of public and private health facilities as 'quality care providers', there is no guarantee that women giving birth in health facilities are receiving the skilled birth attendance needed to save them,'' she added.

--UNI

(c) 2009 Published with permission from United News of India.
Unauthorised publication of any content from NewKerala.Com is prohibited