Vigil on child death cases: State to hold review meet, orientation prog
State Health department will hold a child death review and orientation programme with five senior officials from all the medical college hospitals in the city to maintain better surveillance on the incidents of children death across the state.
Health department has already written to all the medical colleges in Kolkata asking the officials to nominate five members from each medical college.
The orientation programme aims to implement child death surveillance in a better way.
The review and orientation programme will be held at Swasthya Bhawan on January 17.
A circular was issued on Wednesday in which the SSKM Director and the Principals of various other medical colleges like Calcutta Medical College and Hospital, NRS Medical College, RG Kar Medical College, Calcutta National Medical College and also the Dr BC Roy PGIPS and Chittaranjan Seva Sadan have been urged to nominate five members who will take part in the orientation programme.
According to the order, one pediatrician from the pediatric ward of each medical college will be nominated who will be working as faculty nodal officer for the Child Death Surveillance and Response (CDSR) programme.
A senior official of the SNCU, sister-in-charge from SNCU of each medical college and one executive assistant from the SNCU will also take part in the meeting. Sister-in-charge of the pediatric ward will also join the programme.
Incidentally, the Mamata Banerjee-led government recently set a benchmark in the field of children’s healthcare, outshining Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state Gujarat. According to a National Family Health Survey, the infant mortality rate (IMR) (per 1000 live births) in Bengal stands at 22 whereas in Gujarat the figure remains at 31.2.
The Survey said that around 39.7 per cent of the total number of children born in Gujarat is underweight
. In the case of Bengal, the figure has been recorded at 32.2 per cent.
The present government has brought in major infrastructural development in the health sector in the rural areas.
The Bengal government had set up ‘pre-delivery huts’ in the far-flung areas to provide better healthcare facilities to pregnant women free of cost.
It was later announced as a model project by the Centre. An infrastructural revamp carried out by the state government in rural areas has yielded fruitful results.
The national survey shows that institutional delivery has reached around 92 per cent in 2019-20 compared to 75.2 per cent in 2015-16.
