State govt's 'pre-delivery huts' now national model

Kolkata: The Bengal government's project of setting up "waiting huts" or "pre-delivery huts" to provide healthcare facilities to pregnant women free of cost in far-flung areas may soon be replicated by the Centre as the parliamentary committee on the empowerment of women has shown interest in the project.

According to a senior official of the state Health department, Bengal government's project may soon be implemented by the Centre as the parliamentary committee has proposed to consider it to be a model project. This is mainly because the concept has successfully been able to increase the institutional delivery in the rural areas of South 24-Parganas, Sunderbans.

The project was started by the state Health department in the rural areas following the instruction of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who laid enormous emphasis on institutional deliveries in remote areas. The main purpose of setting up of "waiting huts" was to reduce infant mortality rate and also the death of mothers before or after delivery.

It has often been seen that it becomes difficult for women to travel long distances to reach a health centre for an institutional delivery as their family fail to pay for hiring vehicles. Even the health check-up is not done on expectant mothers belonging to remote areas. Keeping this in mind, the state government constructed these huts in the remotest areas of South 24-Parganas that are equipped to keep pregnant women for observation and total care for 7-10 days prior to the expected dates of delivery.

The patients in these huts are kept under constant monitoring and are provided with good quality food at free of cost. There are nurses to check the health conditions of the patients on a regular basis.

In the 10-bedded "waiting huts" that have come up in the district, there is adequate infrastructure available so that expectant mothers from far-flung villages can come here for health check-ups where they will also be fed with nutritious food. It was the Chief Minister's relentless efforts that have brought about sea changes in this field.

The project was initiated so that expectant mothers from South 24-Parganas and particularly areas surrounded by various rivers do not face any difficulties to give birth to their babies. It is not always possible to transport the patients from the farthest corners to the city.

Earlier, it was seen that many expectant mothers would die along with their babies while being transported to a hospital from their native place due to lack of transportation infrastructure.

People had to depend on mechanised boats to ferry a patient to the block primary health centres.