The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Round-the-clock ambulance network to be launched this month

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Round-the-clock ambulance network to be launched this month

Special Correspondent

‘Rotary Paapa,’ an initiative to check child malnutrition, inaugurated

The ambulance service will be accessible on telephone number 108
Concern over iron deficiency anaemia in pregnant women in Tamil Nadu

CHENNAI: Tamil Nadu will launch a round-the-clock ambulance network this month to reach emergency patients to the nearest hospital, Health Secretary V. K. Subburaj said on Sunday.

Launching “Rotary Paapa,” an initiative to check child malnutrition piloted by Rotary International District 3230 at Konambedu Municipality School, Mr. Subburaj said the ambulance network being launched on September 15 would aim to reach the patient’s doorstep within 10 minutes of receiving an alert.

The service will be accessible on the number 108. The ambulance network, modelled on the one in Andhra Pradesh, is expected to significantly reduce mortality.

The initiative was among the several government schemes being implemented on the health front, Mr. Subburaj said. This year, the government had scaled up the allocation to tackle malnutrition in pregnant women from Rs.400 crore the previous year to Rs.750 crore this year. An estimated 9 lakh pregnant mothers would benefit from the ante natal intervention.

The Health Secretary noted that the over 50 per cent iron deficiency anaemia in pregnant women in the State was a cause for concern. The prevalence of anaemia in newborns was even higher at 70 per cent. There was a dire need to eliminate these problems, he said.

Mr. Subburaj pointed out that nutrition deficiency during the ante natal period could lead to lifelong problems for the child. Malnourished or low-birth-weight babies could face impaired brain functions and development delays. Currently, one out of three newborns in Tamil Nadu had low birth weight.

Obstetric emergencies accounted for 40,000 infant deaths and about 1,000 maternal deaths in Tamil Nadu annually.

Though the rates were much lower than the national average, the State government aimed to eliminate these problems, he said.

Surveys had found that though institutional deliveries was over 99 per cent, only 50 per cent of the mothers resorted to breastfeeding the newborn within an hour of delivery, and only 30 per cent of them adopted exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months.

Collaborative effort needed

A. Subramaniam, District Governor, Rotary International District 3230, stressed the need for a collaborative effort to tackle health issues. Rotary, which was a service organisation and not a charity outfit, would not be able to run a campaign such as the pilot child malnutrition project on its own, he pointed out.

Collaboration was the key to Rotary’s watershed campaign against polio that succeeded in eradicating the disorder, he said.

Sudha Umashanker, area coordinator, Rotary Action Group for Alleviation of Hunger and Malnutrition, sought active participation of mothers in the community. The extension of the project to other communities which faced severe malnutrition depended on the success of the pilot in Konambedu, she said.

S. V. Veerramani, assistant governor, Region 7 Clubs, RI District 3230, fellow Rotarians, including Sumathi Vincent, T. R. Ethirajan, R. Sridharan and M. P. Krishnan, Sujatha Shekar and Komala Sivakumar, founder trustee of Iniya Udaiyam also participated.

A host of Rotary organisations — Ambattur, Chennai Gemini, Chennai Mambalam, Chennai Samudra, Madras Mount, T. Nagar, Adyar, Chennai Phoenix, Madras Cosmos, Madras Downtown — and the Iniya Udaiyam Charitable Trust are supporting the programme.

The programme, which aims at distributing nutritional supplements to schoolchildren, will also target malnutrition among adults in the community, a Rotary spokesman said.

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