Health care indicator worst in UP

Uttar Pradesh (UP) emerged as the state having the worst health indicators in the country.

The Annual Health Survey (2010-11) to assess the impact of the government’s flagship health programme, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), found that nearly 60% of child deliveries in the nine states surveyed were done outside hospitals.

It also found that every fifth mother in these states did not receive post-natal medical care and that fewer than 50% of the families used contraceptives or other family planning methods.

The survey covered 20.1 million people in 284 districts. It collected data related to nine vital indicators—crude birth rate, crude death rate, total fertility rate, infant mortality rate, neo-natal mortality rate, child sex ratio, under-five mortality, contraceptive prevalence rate, and female’s mean age at marriage.

The survey was conducted between 2010 and 2011 for reference years 2007-2009—two years after NRHM was initiated. It identified 57 districts—including 34 in UP—as having the worst health indicators in the country.

The government will now modify the NRHM programme to address the issues highlighted by the survey, mission director Anuradha Gupta said. “We are hopeful since we now know exactly where our strategies need to be re-evaluated,” Gupta said. “This will give a basis for evidence-based policies and we will tweak NRHM according to the survey findings. One must remember that in 2010, NRHM was still being rolled out and hence the outcomes will not be drastically different. We had expected such outcomes and are hopeful that the next survey will give a more comprehensive picture of NRHM’s policies.”

source:http://videos.livemint.com/2012/07/16225811/NRHM-fails-to-improve-healthca.html?h=B