Review meet on Maternal & Child Death scenario of Kamrup, Kamrup Metro & Karbi Anglong districts
HT Bureau
Related Posts:
GUWAHATI, Oct 21: With an aim to improve the maternal and child health scenario, National Health Mission, Assam has undertaken a slew of proactive measures, one of them being deployment of state teams to each district of Assam. The team stays and reviews the Maternal & Infant Death and other health related aspects of the district for 3 days. This practice has been in force for the last 5 months, and has contributed in reducing the maternal and infant death scenario in the state as compared to the midterm of 2021-22.
As per reported figures, the number of Maternal Death cases in 2022-23 (April – September) is reported as 289 against 384 number of deaths in 2021-22 (April – September), showing a decline of 95 deaths (25%).
The number of Child Death cases in 2022-23 (April – September) is reported as 3,523 against 3,842 number of deaths in 2021-22 (April – September), showing a decline of 319 deaths (8.3%).
As part of the same, Dr M S Lakshmi Priya, mission director, NHM Assam along with Dr Bhanu Saikia, Dr SA Laskar, Rahul Dev Chakravarty from the state-HQ, conducted a review of the Maternal & Child Death scenario of Kamrup and Kamrup Metro districts in the presence of Dr Gopinath Borah, Jt DHS Kamrup and the team and Dr Kandarpa Kr Das, Jt DHS Kamrup Metro and the team at Hajo FRU.
During the discussion, it was reiterated that the state has the capability to reduce the Maternal & Child death if a targeted approach is taken. Specific issues regarding each block were discussed and the roadmap regarding each block was formulated in consultation with the block teams. Some good practices that were developed by Hajo FRU were also discussed and appreciated and decided to be up-scaled to the state level. MD, NHM also visited the labour room and other areas of the health facility.
MD, NHM reiterated that the first and foremost priority of NHM Assam is to reduce the maternal and infant death and Assam has to move up among the top 5 states in the country.
In addition to the state team district visits, NHM Assam has been conducting monthly Swasthya Manthan, a consultation cum review conclave with all the districts. The consultation conclave is attended by all the district health teams and development partners to review the district wise performance on major health indicators and future course corrections. Till date 3 such Swasthya Manthan’s have been conducted successfully.
Swasthya Sewa Abhiyan (SSA) – Special Health Camps in identified blocks of all the districts.
An initiative by NHM Assam to facilitate comprehensive health services especially for mother and child health including specialties like Ophthalmic, Dental among others all in one location at identified Health Blocks in all the districts of Assam. Till date 2 such health camps have been conducted successfully, while the third such Health Camp is currently being held in the districts. It may be noted that in the pilot SSA a total number of 9,384 patients were screened and in the 2nd SSA a total number of 23, 483 patients were screened.
Swasthya Charcha, an initiative where a set of questionnaires are shared from the State-HQ on a weekly basis to all the districts, who in turn share the same to all the facility in-charges of HWCs and PHCs. Discussions are held every morning on the set of questionnaires shared to them to discuss and demonstrate skills to the frontline workers before starting of the normal OPD hours. The responses are then captured in a Google sheet and knowledge is evaluated.
Any gap so found is assessed and corrective steps are taken.
All these steps are targeted at long term benefits for the state and strengthening of the health systems.
The district level review meeting at Karbi Anglong, was chaired by MD, NHM Assam along with Dr Basu and Munindra Medhi from the state HQ, R Terang, joint secretary, Health & FW, KAAC, Dr Borsing Rongpi, Jt DHS Karbi Anglong and others were present.
