Karnataka - Bangalore

Rural Health Mission yet to take off in State

BANGALORE: The high-profile surgery in a city hospital on Lakshmi Tatma (2) of Araria village in Bihar, fused with her parasitic-twin, was the biggest news in the health scenario in recent times in the State.

This brought a lot of accolades to Indian doctors and focussed on the advances made in medical technology in the country in recent years. But another incident reported this year reflected the loopholes that exist in the public health system — the detection of a polio case in the State.

This reiterates the findings of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 3 for Karnataka, which does not paint an optimistic picture of the health indices here, especially in terms of maternal and child health.

According to NFHS 3, the vaccination coverage has come down from 60 per cent during NFHS 2 to 55 per cent in the State, even though the infant mortality rate has come down from 52 to 43 per cent during NFHS 3.

There are many Lakshmis in the State who may not have disability, but are malnourished. A mere 31 per cent of children aged below three, who suffer from diarrhoea, receive oral re-hydration salts, while only 64.8 per cent of those aged below three have access to health facilities.

What is startling is that 82.7 per cent of children in the six to 35-month age group were found to be anaemic as compared to 70.6 per cent in NFHS 2 and 38 per cent of children aged below three had stunted growth.

Recently, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) asked the State to prepare a plan identifying the health needs of vulnerable sections with a special focus on most backward taluks that had weak health indicators. The National Programme Coordination Committee of NRHM has approved a Rs. 1,131.36-crore Programme Implementation Plan (PIP) for State Rural Health Mission (SRHM) and Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) programme for 2007-08. But the mission is yet to make a beginning in the State.

“Even though the State received funds last year, the Government did not do much to implement the mission here. A sum of Rs. 120 crore, which was unspent, was sent back to the Centre.

In the last two months, some momentum towards implementation seems to be there, but the community has not been involved in the process at all,” said Prasanna Saligram of AID India, who is also part of Janaarogya Andolana.

He said though village health and sanitation committees were formed this year, PIP was made only at the district-level and not at the taluk and village levels. “They have not taken a bottom up approach for implementation which is contrary to the objective of NRHM,” Mr. Saligram said.

However, officials involved in the implementation said that capacity building exercises were being taken up at all levels to ensure smooth implementation of the programme. “We have transferred funds to 12,000 village-level committees which will run the mission,” an official said.

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