How improve is our health sector ?
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: November 05 2012 -

Nothing could have been more ironic than this!

On a day, when India Today honoured Government of Manipur with the award for its best performance in health sector among small States of the country, the Imphal Bench of Gauhati High Court sent notices to various concerned departments of the State Government over a writ petition filed by a pregnant woman against failure of providing necessary benefits and entitlements guaranteed under Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK) scheme.

Or should we say, it was just wrong timing.

Hailed as a 'safe motherhood intervention programme', JSSK was launched on April 12, 2005 in all the States (though in Manipur, the scheme came into effect only from August 15, 2011) and Union Territories of the country as a component of National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) with special focus on low performing States.

The main objective of the scheme, which is 100 percent Centrally funded, is to reduce maternal and neo-natal mortality by promoting institutional delivery among the poor pregnant women.

Apart from ensuring free and cashless service to pregnant women, the provisions of the scheme also covered treatment of sick new born basis in all government health institutions.

In order to ensure its successful implementation, the scheme identified Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) as link between the Government and the poor pregnant women.

However, when it comes to implementation of the scheme in Manipur, there have always been a vast different between the ground reality and what is being projected through the government files, perhaps, on whose basis India Today has deemed it fit to honour the Government of Manipur for its 'best' performance in the health sector.

Based on a reported survey conducted in association with the economic research firm, Indicus Analytics, India Today has rated Manipur as the second best place after Goa to be born in India with a low Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) of 11 in 2011 as against 14 in 2010.

In other words, for every 1,000 live births in Manipur in 2011, 11 babies die as compared to 59 in Madhya Pradesh, which the survey report has ranked as the worst place in the country to be born in term of IMR.

While reduction in annual IMR has been attributed to increase in institutional deliveries and introduction of schemes like JSSK to promote institutional delivery among would-be mothers, it is interesting to note that the same survey report of India Today has put the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in Manipur at 160.

So, when 160 pregnant women out of every 1,000 admitted for institutional deliveries are dying, how one could possibly see any improvement in the health sector of any State, leave aside a poor State like Manipur?