Rajasthan to Conduct Audit to Find Out the Cause of Maternal Mortality

To arrive at exact figures of pregnancy-related deaths and to reduce maternal mortality ratio in the state, Rajasthan has decided to conduct a detailed audit to find out the main cause of…

To arrive at exact figures of pregnancy-related deaths and to reduce maternal mortality ratio in the state, Rajasthan has decided to conduct a detailed audit to find out the main cause of such deaths.

The maternal mortality ratio (MMR) in Rajasthan is 677. MMR is the number of deaths per 100,000 live births and is a measure of the death of risk once a woman becomes pregnant.

The MMR in Rajasthan is much above the national average of 407. Owing to lack of proper and timely medical facilities one woman dies every 10 minutes in the state on account of pregnancy related issue.

State medical department holds the view that the lack of data has been the major impediment to take effective measures to check this nature of premature deaths.

Besides, the fear of strict action prevents the officials to feed the department with correct figures and data.

Due to such reasons, the department lacks the basic information to materialise any big project in this direction.

"Audit is a necessary step taken by the government to know the real reason behind the high maternal mortality rate," Rajasthan Health Minister Digambar Singh told IANS here Sunday.

"A complete and transparent information in this regard would help us to provide better medical facilities and to implement the necessary projects to stop it or at least lower the MMR," Singh said.

He said that the department would also establish as many as 1,000 ideal medical centres, which would have 24-hour medical facilities.

"Besides long term project it is the basic and timely medical facility that can bring down the escalating maternal mortality rate in the state," he added.

Under the audit project, the state government proposes to form district level committees involving the government officials, NGO's, media representatives and village council representatives. The committee would find the reason behind the death rate followed by a yearly audit.

According to some of the field official what is really problematic for them is that most deliveries in the remote areas take place under domestic conditions.

Deaths in this type of delivery go completely unnoticed.

In addition, the lack of direct control on the private clinics is another obstacle to extract the correct data as information on pregnancy deaths in these medical facilities are not transparent enough.

(Source: IANS)