Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Neo-natal institute in Hyderabad

HYDERABAD: With around five per cent of the 1,000 babies born everyday in the city needing intensive neonatal care, a modern medical institute for treating newborns is all set to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy here on August 3.

Established in a public-private partnership mode, 50 per cent of 120-beds at the Neonatal Intensive Care & Emergencies (NICE) institute would provide subsidised care to the poor. The institute proposes to build a network with all the maternity hospitals and nursing homes in a radius of 9 km to provide them quality neonatal care and they can refer high-risk newborns to NICE’s Intensive Care Unit.

Talking to The Hindu, its CEO, M. Reddy Padmanabh said that nursing homes or maternity hospitals which don’t have the expertise or equipment to handle newborns with problems would be provided help by the institute in terms of equipment and professional training. The majority of the babies needing neonatal care are born either prematurely or suffer from problems like birth asphyxia and congenital defects.

Stating that there was no such facility anywhere in the country, he said the aim of NICE institute was to make Hyderabad the safest place for newborns. The bed-strength would be doubled in a year. He said it would seek to reduce neonatal mortality rate, infant mortality rate, burden of permanent handicap and lessen the financial burden for the poor in the treatment of newborns with problems.

As part of developing the network and providing regionalised neonatal care, NICE institute would provide modern resuscitation equipments at 40 per cent of the cost to the labour suites of maternity hospitals, impart training to two doctors/nurses from those facilities and transport sick newborns by trained personnel to the Institute for treatment.

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