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Journalism of Courage
In some good news for would-be parents,the government today announced that deliveries in public health facilities will be made completely free of cost.
At the 8th meeting of the International Advisory Panel (IAP) for reviewing the National Rural Health Mission held here today,Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad said that at the policy level it has been decided that deliveries in public health facilities shall be completely free of cost and full ante-natal care will be ensured.
“Two critical mechanisms of maternal death reviews and name-based tracking of every pregnant woman and child immunised have been initiated to bring down the maternal and infant mortality and morbidity,” he said.
The name-based tracking system will result in creating a database of all pregnant women with their addresses and telephone numbers. They could be contacted and monitored in respect of their ante-natal care,institutional delivery and post-natal care.
Similarly,the immunisation of the children could be monitored to identify dropouts and full immunisation ensured.
The Mother and Child Tracking System is already operational in Gujarat,Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu while the other states are in the implementation phase,the minister informed.
Azad acknowledged that the recommendations of the mid-term evaluation report on the National Rural Health Mission prepared by the IAP have immensely helped provide useful inputs for improving the programme implementation.
The minister recounted that over the past six years,funds to the tune of Rs 55,000 crore have been released under NRHM.
This has helped in improving the infrastructure facilities,augmentation of human resources and quality of care,he noted.
The OPD and IPD patients in health facilities have also increased.
