Government Steps up Efforts to Lower Maternal Death Rate

 

BHUBANESWAR:The State Government has decided to undertake case by case monitoring of maternal deaths across all districts as it steps up efforts to bring down maternal mortality rate (MMR) and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by 2020.
In a departure from the existing system of recording maternal deaths, the Health department will from now onwards put each and every death to intense scrutiny to not only verify the medical causes but also socio-cultural factors concerning mothers.
Along with child-birth related complications, infections and other medical factors, post-delivery care, household practices and other aspects that could possibly affect the woman during post-natal period would be examined. The objective is to pin-point both the medical and other factors leading to death and correlate them with other cases in the region that would help in devising a more effective strategy to curb MMR in the State.
Chief district medical officers (CDMOs) will conduct reviews of each individual case of maternal mortality in their respective districts. The review meeting would be video-recorded and a detailed report along with the videos would be sent to the State-level Task Force on MMR every month, Health Secretary Arti Ahuja has directed.
The Task force will strengthen monitoring of MMR in every district and maintain critical records of each and every case. In the first phase, the module would be adopted in Bargarh, Balangir, Boudh, Cuttack, Gajapati, Ganjam, Jagatsinghpur, Jajpur, Kandhamal, Mayurbhanj, Nayagarh, Puri, Rayagada, Sambalpur and Puri. The system would come into force from August 1.
The State Task Force has also decided to conduct special training programmes for nurses and trained midwives for more effective management of women in labour and delivery cases. Training manuals in simple step by step procedures and illustrations will also be provided to them.
MMR in Odisha is on the decline in recent years but continues to be among the highest in the country. From 258 in one lakh births in 2009, it has come down to 222 in 2013.