Chief Minister Shivraj Singh launched his flagship “beti bachao abhiyaan” (save the daughters campaign) across the State amid much fanfare last month.
But maternal health analysts in the State are asking: how to save daughters when 53.6% of the total sanctioned posts of Gynaecologists, 43.7% of Paediatricians and 48% of the total sanctioned posts of Anaesthetists remain vacant in the State?
An analysis of official health data in the State, carried out by a Bhopal based organisation, exposes the crumbling health infrastructure in the State and explains why the State remains one of the worst performers on maternal and child health indicators in the country.
Vikas Samvad, a maternal health and food security advocacy organisation, analysed the data and statistics of the Department of Public Health and Family Welfare, Government of Madhya Pradesh, and the health management and publicity cell of the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM).
The quality of maternal healthcare available in the State can be gauged from the fact that while the percentage of institutional deliveries in the state rose from 27% in 2005-06 to 84% in 2010-11, the maternal mortality rate remained high at 310 deaths per 1000 deliveries.
As for child health, Madhya Pradesh has 572 sanctioned posts for child health specialists, of which 250 (43.7%) lie vacant. Around 48.3% of sanctioned posts are vacant in district hospitals, the figure for civil hospitals being 60%.
This means only one child health specialist is available, on average, for every 32,609 children under six years of age. If children aged up to 12 years are included, the state has one paediatrician for every 66,000 children.
Not surprisingly, according to the latest findings of the Sample Registration Survey-2011, 30 of the 100 districts in the country with the highest Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) are in Madhya Pradesh.
The state has the dubious distinction of having the highest IMR of 67 per 1,000 live births for children aged up to one year.
Madhya Pradesh also tops for children aged upto five years with an under-five mortality rate of 89 per 1,000 live births.
Also, of the over 40 malaria deaths in 10 days in the tribal dominated districts of the state, more than half were of children.
“The healthcare scenario in the State is dismal, to say the least. And its not our subjective opinion, this is what the official statistics point to,” says Sachin Jain, state advisor to the Right to Food commissioners appointed by the Supreme Court and leader of the team that carried out the study.
And yet, while the state boasts of a full fledged, official “yoga policy”, it does not have a “health policy”.
