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Sunday, Dec 30, 2007
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New hope for newborns

Special Correspondent

JAIPUR: A new state-of-the-art Special Care Newborn Unit established in Sadaqat Government Hospital at Tonk in Rajasthan with the help of UNICEF is expected to make a significant contribution to survival of infants in the district where the infant mortality rate is one of the highest in the State.

The new unit was inaugurated on Saturday at a simple ceremony in the presence of rural underprivileged families which will benefit from its facilities. Against an average of 65 out of every 1,000 children born in the State dying before their first birthday, the infant mortality rate in Tonk is as high as 82 out of 1,000.

UNICEF has provided technical and financial support for setting up the new unit in collaboration with the State Rural Health Mission. Similar units are proposed to be established in eight other high infant mortality rate districts in the State next year.

Mahavir Prasad Jain, the ruling party’s chief whip in the Rajasthan Assembly and MLA from Tonk, addressing the gathering said the well-equipped unit at the district hospital would render timely help to save newborns who earlier lost their lives in the absence of proper paediatric and post-natal care.

Tonk Collector Onkar Singh said the district administration had rendered assistance under the Janani Suraksha Yojana to 13,000 women for institutional deliveries this year. He expressed the hope that the new unit would encourage more women to desist from the unsafe practice of delivery at home.

UNICEF health specialist Pavitra Mohan said the U.N. organisation had contributed Rs.35 lakh for the construction of the new unit. He expressed concern over the fact that 42 out of the 65 infants in the IMR figure in the State were dying within the first month of life and added that the new unit would help improve the situation.

UNICEF coordinator Kalyan Singh Kothari said this was a “powerful initiative” of the U.N. organisation.

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