Few months back when I was in Benaras, Anjani bhai told me that there is an initiative to check the hemoglobin levels of the villagers to determine how many are anemic. He concluded by saying that it was so surprising that many of the volunteers in this initiative themselves were anemic.
I was reminded of this conversation when I was talking with Mr. Dharampal in Virat Nagar. Dharampal is the local coordinator of all the activities of Humana in the Virat Nagar block. He was telling me about the public health initiative with WHO. The aim is to overall improve the health of the villagers with particular emphasis on maternal health. One of the major problem is the maternal mortality rate. The maternal death can be attributed to lack of hospital but also to the fact that many of the women are anemic.
It was very telling therefore to look at the record of the health check-up done recently in this area. In this block Humana runs 14 bridge school for girls who have never been to school. The objective is to teach the girls the basics and then enroll them into formal schools. In addition, the organization does a health camp every year. This year they were able to rope in the government doctor as well as medical store supplier so that medicines could be distributed. I looked at the health record. 90% the girls (~25 girls per center = ~350 girls) were anemic. So we can see how it later translates into high maternal death.
We need to start now to reduce the maternal mortality rate.
2 comments:
According to this WHO report:
http://www.who.int/whosis/mme_2005.pdf
India's estimated MMR [Maternal mortality rate per 100,000 live births] is 450 with a range of uncertainty from 300-600. Let alone countries like Japan (estimated MMR 6!), it would be nice if we could attain the standards of Sri Lanka: estimated MMR 58 with a range of uncertainty from 39-77. And China, our "competitor" (at least in our view) has an estimated MMR of 45 with an uncertainty range of 30-60! Why do we even think ourselves as competitors to the Chinese?
Unfortunately, we do terribly on a whole range of social indicators, of which the MMR is merely one.
Actually, what bothered me was what Dharampal said. He said, it was lot of pride, that the government doctor (I think he is with the Block level hospital) had agreed to come for the health check-up. Isn't that the doctor's responsibility? Shouldn't our PHC be functional and these health parameters be monitored?
Sri Lanka, despite all the ethnic strife, has done commendably in these social parameters. We like to think ourselves as superpowers and worry whether we will get UN security council seat. It would be nice if we actually started worrying about the social parameters for a change.
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