Under National Rural Health Mission, the following interventions are
being implemented to improve child health situation in the country:
1.
Promotion of Institutional Delivery through JananiSurakshaYojana (JSY) and JananiShishuSurakshaKaryakram
(JSSK): Promoting Institutional delivery to ensure skilled birth attendance is
a key to reducing both maternal and neo-natal mortality. JSY incentivizes
pregnant women to opt for institutional delivery and provides for cash
assistance. JSSK entitles all pregnant women to absolutely free and zero
expense delivery including caesarean section operation in Government health
facilities and provides for free to and fro transport, food, drugs and
diagnostics. Similar entitlements have also been put in place for sick
neonates. This scheme has now been extended to cover all infants in the
country.
2.
Strengthening Facility based newborn care: Newborn
care corners (NBCC) are being set up at all health facilities where deliveries
take place to provide essential newborn care at birth to all new born babies;
Special New Born Care Units (SNCUs) at District Hospitals and New Born
Stabilization Units (NBSUs) at FRUs are being set up for the care of sick
newborn. As on date 401 SNCUs, 1542 NBSUs and 11508 NBCCs are functional across
the country.
3.
Home Based Newborn Care (HBNC): Home based newborn
care through ASHA has recently been initiated to improve new born care
practices at the community level and for early detection and referral of sick
new born babies. The schedule of home visits by ASHA consists of at least 6
visits in case of institutional deliveries, on days 3, 7, 14, 21, 28 & 42nd
days and one additional visit within 24 hours of delivery in case of home
deliveries. Additional visits will be made for babies who are pre-term, low
birth weight or ill.
4.
Capacity building of health care providers: Various
trainings are being conducted under National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to
build and upgrade the skills of doctors, nurses and ANM for early diagnosis and
case management of common ailments of children and care of newborn at time of
birth. These trainings include Integrated Management of Neo-natal and Childhood
Illness (IMNCI) and NavjaatShishuSurakshaKaryakram
(NSSK). A total of 5.8 lakh health care workers have been trained in IMNCI in
505 districts and 89,962 health workers trained in NSSK so far.
5.
Management of Malnutrition: Emphasis is being laid
on reduction of malnutrition which is an important underlying cause of child
mortality. 605 Nutritional Rehabilitation Centres
have been established for management of Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM). Iron and Folic Acid is also provided to
children for prevention of anaemia. Recently, weekly
Iron and Folic Acid is proposed to be initiated for adolescent population. As
breastfeeding reduces infant mortality, exclusive breastfeeding for first six
months and appropriate infant and young child feeding practices are being
promoted in convergence with Ministry of Woman and Child Development.
6.
Village Health and Nutrition Days (VHNDs) are also
being organized for imparting nutritional counseling to mothers and to improve
child care practices.
7.
Universal Immunization Program (UIP): Vaccination
against seven diseases is provided to all children under UIP. Government of
India supports the vaccine program by supply of vaccines and syringes, cold
chain equipments and provision of operational costs. UIP targets to immunize
2.7 crore infants against seven vaccine preventable
diseases every year. 21 states with more than 80% coverage have incorporated
second dose of Measles in their immunization program.Pentavalent
vaccine has been introduced in two states of Kerala and Tamil Nadu and now
expanded to six more states. Year 2012-13 has been declared as ‘Year of
intensification of Routine Immunization’. India has achieved a historic
milestone by remaining polio free for two full years now. WHO has taken India
off the list of polio endemic countries.
8.
Mother and Child Tracking System: A name based
Mother and Child Tracking System has been put in place which is web based to
enable tracking of all pregnant women and newborns so as to monitor and ensure
that complete services are provided to them. States are encouraged to send SMS
alerts to beneficiaries reminding them of the dates on which services are due
and generate beneficiary-wise due list of services with due dates for ANMs on a
weekly basis.
9.
Recently, a new national programme “RashtriyaBalSwasthyaKaryakram”
has been launched under National Rural Health Mission. The details of this
initiative are as below:
(a)
The purpose of RBSK is to improve
survival, development and quality of life of children in the age group of 0 to
18 years through early detection of Defects at birth, Diseases, Deficiencies,
Development Delays including Disability and follow-up for appropriate
management and treatment, if required (medical or surgical). RBSK envisages
covering 30 common health conditions prevalent in children for early detection
and free intervention and treatment.
(b)
The child health screening
services builds on the existing school health services and will be provided
through dedicated mobile health teams placed in every block. The block level
dedicated mobile medical health teams would comprise of trained doctors and
paramedics.
(c) Existing
services offered by Ministry of Women and Child Development, Social Justice and
Empowerment and Education will also be optimally utilized.
The above information was given by the Union Minister for Health
& Family Welfare, ShriGhulamNabi Azad in a
written reply to a question in the LokSabha today.
BN