Improvement of maternal health a far cry in Orissa

New Delhi, June 30 : In spite of the government's claims that rural health is undergoing a massive change under its flagship programme, a survey by a federation of advocacy agencies Tuesday said quality of healthcare is too bad in Orissa and women are dying in hospitals during child-births.

“Earlier many women were dying at home during baby-birth and now they are facing the same situation at health centres,” said Nabin Kumar Pati, co-chairman of the White Ribbon Alliance, India.

A survey by the alliance that is a conglomerate of 1,500 organisations in 12 districts of Orissa found that implementation of safe motherhood policies and programmes have implementation problems.

The findings revealed that 52 percent of the Auxillary Nurse Midwife (ANM) have no weighing machines and 55 percent don't have blood pressure measuring instruments. ANMs play a key role in imparting health care to women and children in rural India.

“Only 8.1 percent of these health workers have stethoscopes available with them and this highlights the gap in supply of instruments and drugs,” Aparajita Gogoi, national coordinator of the alliance, told reporters.

Experts present on the occasion said eight years back the maternal mortality rate (MMR) in Orissa was 367 per 100,000 live births as against national average of 401. But now the state was much below the national average in controlling maternal mortality.

“At present the MMR in Orissa is 303 as against a little above 254 in the national level,” White Ribbon Alliance's Orissa head Ashok Sahu said.

India is one of the key contributors to the maternal deaths in the world with over 20 percent of such deaths being reported from the country. Around 100,000 deaths occur in India from the causes related to pregnancy and child birth. Orissa, where 75,000 women deliver babies every year, 2,500 women lose their life.

The survey conducted in districts like Angul, Bolangir, Boud, Dhenkanal, Jharsuguda, Kandhamal, Khurda, Koraput, Mayurbhanj, Nuapada, Sonepur and Sundergarh, found that 54 percent of the ANMs are administering life saving drugs and performing obstetric first aid in the absence of gynaecologists.

Of the 24 FRUs (first referral units) the alliance interacted with, 14 were functional but six of them only have blood transfusion facilities available with them.