Despite the pathetic medical facilities in Jharkhand, the State exhibited a good response in reducing Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) and Infant Mortality rate (IMR).
According to ‘Save the Children’ new global report, ‘Ending newborn deaths, ensuring every baby survives’ which was launched by National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) director Manish Ranjan on Tuesday, NMR has shown a sharp decline from 48 per 1,000 children in the year 2005-06 to 25 per 1,000 children in the year 2011- 12. Similarly, IMR has also dipped from 70 per 1,000 live birth (2001) to 38 per 1,000 (2011-12).
Ranjan showing his happiness over the report commented, “We are heading towards achieving the aims of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) -4 of the United Nation of bringing down the IMR by two- third by 2015 from 1990 level but still there exists a gap between IMR of rural areas and that of urban areas. It is very important to close the present level of inequality in the State.”
He further added that there are number of problem at implementation level that needs to be addressed at the earliest. State government is taking all measures to reach out to all the people.
Jharkhand has made significant progress in reducing deaths of children below five, which presently stands at 55 per 1000 live births (AHS-2011-12) from 78 per 1000 live births (NFHS 1998-99).
“To curb under-5 mortality, the focus must be on ensuring that children survive their first day of birth. The report highlights that about half the first-day deaths around the world could be prevented if every mother and baby had access to free and quality health care and skilled birth attendants,” said Mahadev Hansda, State Program Manager of Save the Children.
Speaking on the occasion Chief UNICEF Jharkhand Job Zachariah stated that loss of a child life is a shock for entire community. “Though, we have made significant progress in reducing the death of children, still around 20,000 of them die in first week. We cannot let this happen. The direst need of the hour is to eradicate the problem from root cause,” he added.
Roop laxmi Munda, Chairperson, SCPCR claimed that there is a need to ensure that every child and mother gets services of a Skilled Birth Attendant during delivery.
“If we want to achieve MDG 4 by 2015, we have to focus on ensuring survival on the first day of birth .Our report reveals the true scale of the newborn crisis. Without targeted action now, progress made in cutting child mortality will stall. If we can eradicate polio, we can also ensure that a child does not die due to preventable reasons,” said Thomas Chandy, CEO of Save the Children at Delhi.