WUNRN
India
- High Maternal Mortality - UN
Widening
Disparity in India's Health Battle
15
January 2009
Reuters
By
Bappa Majumdar
NEW
DELHI, Jan 15 (Reuters) - India's fight to lower maternal and child mortality
rates is failing due to growing social inequalities and shortages in primary
healthcare facilities despite an economic boom, the United Nations said on
Thursday.
India's
maternal mortality rate (MMR) stands at 450 per 100,000 live births -- against
540 in the 1998-99 period -- and way behind the Millennium Development Goals
(MDGs) which call for a reduction to 109 by 2015, the United Nations Children's
Fund (UNICEF) said.
"We
know what needs to be done to save the lives of the 78,000 women who die from
pregnancy and childbirth each year in India," said Karin Hulshof, UNICEF
India representative.
"Primary
health care that embraces every stage of maternal, newborn and child health
must be made available to all of India's most vulnerable women and children so
they can survive and thrive," Hulshof added.
India's
infant mortality rate stands at 57 per 1,000 live births, more than
impoverished Eritrea and Bangladesh, Indian officials say.
The
MDGs are eight social and economic development benchmarks set for nations to
accomplish by 2015.
They
include reducing poverty levels, increasing universal education and fighting
the spread of AIDS.
India
is not on track to meet half its MDGs by 2015, experts said last September in
New Delhi, while presenting a global MDGs report.
According
to UNICEF, India has to achieve about a two-thirds reduction in MMR to meet the
target by 2015, which they said was difficult given growing social and income
inequalities.
"Widening
disparities are prevalent in health outcomes between income groups and between
social and caste groups," the UNICEF said in its "State of World
Children-2009" report.
More
than two-thirds of Indians live in rural areas, many without access to basic
medical facilities, despite three years of nearly 9 percent economic growth.
About
65 percent of Indian women still deliver at home and those who are from the
lower caste suffer the most as they are often denied access to basic
healthcare.
Indian
states show disparity in maternal mortality rates.
While
the northern state of Uttar Pradesh has a maternal mortality rate of 517,
almost comparable to Sudan at 550, the MMR in the southern state of Kerala is
only 110.
In
neighbouring Nepal, the Maoist-led government announced it has started
providing free maternal services to pregnant women in state-run centres to
reduce maternal and child mortality rates.
About
80 percent of women deliver their babies at home where 67 percent of all
maternal deaths occur, Nepalese officials said.
____________________________________________________________________
----- Original Message -----
From: WUNRN
ListServe
To: WUNRN ListServe
Sent: Friday, January 02, 2009 11:01 AM
Subject: India - UN SR Health Report on Mission to India - Maternal
Mortality Focus
WUNRN
"The mission focused on the
issue of maternal mortality with a view to understanding, in the context of the
right to the highest attainable standard of health, the steps taken by India to
reduce this phenomenon, and to make constructive recommendations....."
"The Special Rapporteur
underlines that maternal health is not only a health issue. It is also a human
rights issue, relating to - for example - women's rights to life, health,
equality and non-discrimination."
"In India, 100,000 women die
yearly in India during childbirth or pregnancy. There is an average of 300
maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births in India, which is higher than in
many other middle-income and some low-income countries....Even though the
Indian Rate of maternal deaths is declining, at the present rate neither India,
nor any of its states, will reach their maternal mortality targets for 2015
arising from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)...."
"Registration System and
Maternal Death Audits: The Special Rapporteur noted with concern that there is
no effective, reliable and comprehensive civil registration for accurately
reporting births and deaths in India. There is evidence that women are silently
dying in childbirth and during pregnancy. As many of these deaths are not registered,
they remain uncounted and unreported. The Special Rapporteur strongly
recommends that all States introduce, as a matter of urgency, a comprehensive,
effective registration system, as well as a system of maternal death audits,
such as those already in existence in Tamil Nadu and on a pilot basis in
Rajasthan. It is of the utmost importance that all the circumstances of
maternal deaths are examined in order to find out why the death occurred. A
maternal death audit should be a non-judicial review, one that goes beyond
medical reasons to identify the social, economic and cultural reasons that led
or contributed to the death...."
|
|
|
A |
|
|
|
Distr. GENERAL A/HRC/11/Add.4 29 February
2008 ENGLISH Only |
HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL
Seventh Session
Agenda Item 3
Promotion and Protection of All
Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including
the Right to Development
REPORT OF THE SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON
THE RIGHT OF EVERYONE TO THE ENJOYMENT OF THE HIGHEST ATTAINABLE STANDARD OF
PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH
PRELIMINARY NOTE ON THE MISSION TO
INDIA
ADDENDUM
_____________________________________________________________________
================================================================
To contact the list administrator, or to leave the list, send an email to:
wunrn_listserve-request@lists.wunrn.com. Thank you.