By Our Reporter
SHILLONG: The National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has failed to contain maternal mortality rate (MMR) and infant mortality rate (IMR) for the past few years in West Garo Hills.
This has come to light in the report of the Comptroller and Auditor general (CAG), which was tabled in the State Assembly on Tuesday.
According to the report of the CAG, in the district during 2009-11, the MMR instead of improving had deteriorated to 392 from 240 in 2006-07 which was better than all India average of 424.
“The MMR five years later in 2009-11 showed an increase of 63 per cent which is a matter of concern”, stated the report. In 2008-09, the MMR increased to 340 and increased to 392 from 2009-2011.
On the other hand, the IMR has shown a slight decline from 56 in 2006-07 to 54 in 2010-11 and was almost comparable with the all India average which was 55.
The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in the district from 2006 to 2011 remained at five, which is more than the average of the state as well as the all India average.
Both the birth rate and death rate do not favourably compare with the all India average as well as the state average.
It was stated that since 2006-11, the birth rate remained the same with 27 while the death rate went down from 9 in 2006-08 to 8.3 in 2009-11.
The possibility of accomplishing the target set under NRHM by improving health indicators by 2012, appears remote in the district, stated the report.
It may be pointed out that the NRHM seeks to reduce the MMR to 100 per one lakh live births, IMR to 30 per 1000 live births and TFR to 2.1 per 1000 within the seven-year period of the NRHM (2005-2012).
Meanwhile, in regards to the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), one of the components of the reproductive child health (RCH) programme under NRHM, the district was making progress in achieving the objective of the JSY however; there is a need to make rigorous efforts to attract the pregnant women to have institutional deliveries.
According to the data of the CAG report, the number of institutional deliveries increased by 139 percent over the period of 2006-11, during 2006-07, institutional deliveries constituted 26 percent of total deliveries which had increased to 40 percent in 2010-11.
Domiciliary deliveries as a percentage of total deliveries declined from 74 percent in 2006-07 to 60 percent in 2010-11.
“However, this has to be viewed in the backdrop of the fact that there were 2169 more domiciliary deliveries in 2010-11 than in 2006-07, increase in MMR during last five years and marginal decline of IMR during the period”, stated the report.
Further, the status of women of the district provided with Antenatal care component of the NRHM where women were to be provided with 100 iron folic acid (IFA) tablets, two doses of tetanus toxide (TT) and minimum three to four check-ups indicated that the required two doses of TT were not administered to pregnant women, the shortfall of which ranged between 19.59 percent and 26.29 percent.
During 2006-07, IFA tablets were not provided to any pregnant women while during 2007-11, shortfall in providing IFA ranged between 9.92 percent and 70.53 percent. Percentage of pregnant women provided with minimum three check-ups has improved marginally during the last five years.
“Antenatal care was not effective in the district which could be one of the causes for increase in MMR during the last five years”, stated the report.