Patwari attacks govt over failure to curb high infant deaths
Bhopal: Congress state president Jitu Patwari on Sunday accused the state govt of failing to reduce infant and maternal mortality rates, despite spending Rs 10,000 crore over the past five years to check the health issues.
Citing the latest Sample Survey System (SSR) report, he said 40 children among 1,000 children born in a year fail to see their first birthday. While IMR in the country fell to 26 from 40 per 1,000 children between 2013 to 2022, in the state it has only come down from 53 to 40 in the same period.
In a letter addressed to CM Mohan Yadav, the Congress leader said the IMR and MMR figures expose the huge claims of development by the state govt and raises a pertinent question where the money being raised through debts in the name of development are going.
"The annual budget on healthcare is Rs 4500 crore but even the most basic healthcare services are not available to people."
He further asked the chief minister why the facility of cesarean delivery was available only in 120 of the 547 healthcare centres functional in the state in 2022? Whether the other healthcare centres are acting only as "referral centres"?, He asked.
Patwari said that posts of child specialists are vacant in 70 percent of the community health centres despite the fact that 55 percent deaths in SNCU are of the children brought in "referral cases".
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Patwari said that a state which has a debt burden of Rs 4.5 lakh crore is not able to basic healthcare needs of its people and it makes one ask whether a 'healthy Madhya Pradesh' is anywhere in the priority list of the state government or it intends to continue selling 'pipe dream' through public speeches and publicity.
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