Govt indicted for infant deaths

NAGPUR: About 1,60,000 infants die in Maharashtra every year due to malnutrition. This searing indictment of the Maharashtra government is the highlight of the report prepared by the Abhay Bang committee appointed by the government to study infant mortality in the state.
The panel’s first report was presented in the legislative council on Saturday by minister for public health Vimal Mundada.
Controversy has dogged the panel from the beginning, with someof its members disagreeing with its functioning or resigning from it. The differing views of members are evident, as the statistics quoted in the report vary considerably, depending on their source of information. However, all the members have agreed on the need to address the issue on a priority basis.
Deploring the government''s lack of seriousness despite the fact that the lives of lakhs of children were at stake, the 55-page report said the structure of the state health department and its "mentality" were the primary reasons for the problem.
The committee, which has culled information from different agencies, said that 82,000 children died every year in ruralMaharashtra, and 23,500 died in tribal areas. In urban slums, it said, 56,000 children died every year.
According to the report, 80 per cent of the deaths occur due to stillbirths, pneumonia and diarrhoea.
These factors, according to the Bang report are tackleable with simple home-based interventions. The report noted that according to the Union government, the rate of infant mortality in the country had declined by 13 per 1,000 over the past seven years. However, in Maharashtra, it had declined by just three.
The Maharashtra Population Policy, a document prepared by the state government, had declared that its objective was to bring down the mortality rate to 25 by the year 2004 and to 15 by 2010. But this appears to be unrealistic. Charging the government agencies with reporting only a small percentage of the actual number of deaths, the committee emphasised the need to register every child birth and death.