Hyderabad, July 24: The urban poor in the State, particularly slum dwellers are most vulnerable to infant mortality rates, informed doctors at a conference at a City medicare centre on Thursday. While the nation contributes 25 percent of all the births in the word, the rate of infant mortality within a month of birth stands at an alarming 30 percent, noted a delegation of doctors who came to the City to participate in a three-day seminar on Neonatology, scheduled to start on Friday.
Alleging that a combination of lack of infrastructure, technology and skills contributes to the high mortality rate of newborn babies, Dr Venkata Nakta Raju, neonatal specialist from Texas noted that “there is a need to develop an interface programme, which would enable the transfer of knowledge and expertise on the subject of neo-natal care in the country.” Authorities at the hospital further noted that “according to UNICEF findings, nearly 78,000 mothers die during childbirth, which is aggravated by the average age of child bearing mothers, which hovers around the 17 year range, while around 16 percent of girls aged between 15 and 19 have already taken up the mantle of child bearing.”
Pushing for a public-private partnership model in the state infant health care, Dr Raju said that “alongside medicare facilities, attention also needs to be given to training and research facilities, given the lack of technical expertise in many parts of the Medicare sector in the State.” The authorities at the NICE Institute for the Newborn, which hosted the event meanwhile revealed that the institute would be providing beds for patients from economically backward classes at a subsidy of 50 percent. Authorities also noted that the institute has started a programme of offering free health care to government school going children in Hyderabad, which at present caters to school kids in the age group of 6 to 14 years. “The cost of ensuring the health of these school kids has been pegged at 50 paisa per day, which adds up to 183 Rupees in a year, making the programme a feasible model to be undertaken by the State government,” added Dr Padmanabh Reddy, the Director of the Institute.
The institute sources further indicated that the school health programme is currently being reviewed and recognised by the Eleventh Five Year Planning Commision in the Union government.
–Agencies–