Tamil Nadu   

Infant mortality audit to be done in Cuddalore

A.V. Ragunathan

Deaths may be due to preventable reasons, says Collector

HEALTH NEEDS: Cuddalore District Collector Rajendra Ratnoo addressing a meeting of Village Health Nurses in Cuddalore on Tuesday

CUDDALORE: A mechanism will be put in place in the district to carry out an "infant mortality audit" to fix the reasons for, and, to suggest the ways to reduce its incidence, according to Rajendra Ratnoo, District Collector.

Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Mr. Ratnoo said the infant mortality could be due to preventable reasons such as lack of transport to reach hospitals in time for the child delivery.

The auditing would go into entire spectrum of issues and offer solutions, he noted. As per the published reports, the infant mortality rate (IMR) in the district was 31.6 per 1,000 live births in 2003. The estimates for the successive years indicated a declining trend in the IMR. It came down to 28.7 per 1,000 live births in 2004 and 25.3 per 1,000 live births in 2005. There were 833 infant deaths in 2004, 771 in 2005 and 640 in 2006.

VHNs' role

The Village Health Nurses would be motivated to prevail upon the people to go for institutional delivery. There was a noticeable decline in the domestic/home deliveries in the past three years — 14 per cent of the total births in 2004, 8.6 per cent in 2005 and 7 per cent in 2006.

For 2007, the target had been fixed at 5 per cent, he said. To achieve the goal, all the Primary Health Centres would be provided with ambulances, and all the 319 VHNs with cell phones.

The cell phone numbers would be displayed in the fair price shops, anganwadis, PHCs, offices of the village administrative officers and block development offices to attend to health-related exigencies.

The VHNs would focus on neo-and ante-natal care, adolescent girls and on non communicable diseases such as diabetes, hyper-tension, anaemia and coronary artery diseases.

As the tablets had certain contraindications for some girls, it had been proposed to try Siddha medicines.

Referring to the VHNs meeting convened earlier, Mr. Ratnoo said wherever necessary their quarters would be renovated or new quarters would be built. Under the National Rural Health Mission each VHN would be given Rs. 10,000 to meet unforeseen expenses.

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