Focus on infrastructure in hospitals: Experts

KOLKATA: Focusing on child deaths at B.C. Roy Children’s hospital and other hospitals in Kolkata is taking a lopsided view of reality, feel experts.
The incidents are just the end of a long chain of inefficient practices and lack of infrastructure that need to be targeted, they felt.
According to them, the first delay occurs at home, where parents wait for the symptoms to subside on their own or go to quacks.This is followed by delays at the primary health centres, block hospitals and district hospitals, resulting in loss of precious time before the patient is finally brought to the city hospital, the last link in the referral chain.
According to social workers in the primary health sphere, there should be a subcentre under an auxiliary nursing mid-wife (ANM) for every 5,000 people. “The number of sub-centres has not changed since the 1960s. Even the existing ones do not have ANMs,� an official said.
The Tagore Society for Rural Development, which has been working in remote Sunderbans on health for over 30 years, has found that mothers make the best extension workers. “A mother with a healthy child can generate more awareness than any health worker,� said Society secretary Tushar Kanjilal.
According to the 2001 census, West Bengal has among the lowest infant mortality rates in the country at 51 per 1,000, 54 in rural areas and 37 in urban areas.Of these, twothirds are neo-natal deaths, that is before the child is a month old. About half of the neo-natal deaths occur in the first week.
“This points to malnutrition of the mother being the primary cause behind the deaths,� said UNICEF state representative Carrie Auer.
The organisation is currently running safe motherhood programmes along with the state government and other agencies. It will shortly begin the Integrated Management of Childhood Illnesses Programme in the state.
Instead of a knee-jerk reaction, there should be a demand for a concentrated multi-tier health policy which focuses on mother’s health from the time pregnancy is known, experts felt.