Lok Sabha Question No. 1253 (UNSTARRED), answered on 2024-02-09
Subject: Maternal and Child Healthcare Services
Ministry: HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE
Asked by: P. C. Mohan

## GOVERNMENTOFINDIA MINISTRYOF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE DEPARTMENTOFHEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE

## LOK SABHA UNSTARRED QUESTION NO. 1253 TO BE ANSWERED ON 09/02/2024

## MATERNALANDCHILDHEALTHCARESERVICES

## 1253. SHRI P.C MOHAN:

Will the Minister of HEALTHANDFAMILYWELFARE

be pleased to state:

- (a) whether the Government has any plans to enhance the accessibility and quality of healthcare services for pregnant women and young children in the country;
- (b) if so, the details thereof; and
- (c) the steps taken/proposed to be taken by the Government to improve maternal and child health outcomes in the country?

## ANSWER THE MINISTER OF STATE IN THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH AND FAMILY WELFARE (DR. BHARATI PRAVIN PAWAR)

## (a) to (c)

The Government of India has been working in collaboration with all State/UTs and different stakeholders to enhance the accessibility and quality of healthcare services for pregnant women and young children through various initiatives/schemes like Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY), Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK), Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN), Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan ( PMSMA) /Extended-PMSMA, Labour room Quality Improvement initiatives (LaQshya), MusQan etc.

Under National Health Mission (NHM), the Government of India has taken various measures to improve maternal and child health outcomes in the country, which are as follows:

-  Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan (SUMAN) provides assured, dignified, respectful and quality healthcare at no cost and zero tolerance for denial of services for every woman and newborn visiting public health facilities to end all preventable maternal and newborn deaths.
-  Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) a demand promotion and conditional cash transfer scheme promotes institutional delivery.
-  Janani Shishu Suraksha Karyakram (JSSK) entitles every pregnant woman to free delivery, including caesarean section, in public health institutions along with the provision of free transport, diagnostics, medicines, blood, other consumables and diet.

Every sick infant up to one year of age is entitled for zero expenses treatment in public health institutions.

-  Pradhan Mantri Surakshit Matritva Abhiyan (PMSMA) provides pregnant women a fixed day, free of cost assured and quality antenatal check up by a Specialist/Medical Officer on the 9th day of every month.

Extended PMSMA strategy ensures quality ANC to pregnant women, especially to high-risk pregnancy (HRP) women and individual HRP tracking till a safe delivery is achieved by means of financial incentivization for the identified high risk pregnant women and accompanying ASHA for extra 3 visits over and above the PMSMA visit.

-  Optimizing Postnatal Care aims to strengthen the quality of post-natal care by laying emphasis on detection of danger signs in mothers and incentivization of ASHAs for prompt detection, referral & treatment of such high-risk postpartum mothers.
-  Midwifery Initiatives provides respectful and positive birthing experiences to all pregnant women by promoting natural birthing through Nurse Practitioner Midwives (NPMs) who are skilled in accordance to (ICM) competencies.
-  LaQshya improves the quality of care in labour room and maternity operation theatres to ensure that pregnant women receive respectful and quality care during delivery and immediate post-partum.
-  Monthly Village Health, Sanitation and Nutrition Day (VHSND) an outreach activity at Anganwadi centres ensures provision of maternal and childcare including nutrition in convergence with the ICDS.
-  Birth Waiting Homes (BWH) are established in remote and tribal areas to promote institutional delivery and improve access to healthcare facilities.
-  Outreach camps are provisioned for improving the reach of health care services especially in tribal and hard to reach areas. This platform is used to increase awareness for the Maternal & Child health services, community mobilization as well as to track high risk pregnancies.
-  Functionalization of First Referral Units (FRUs) by ensuring manpower, blood storage units, referral linkages to improve the access to quality of care for pregnant women.
-  Setting up of Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Wings at high caseload facilities to improve the quality of care provided to mothers and children.
-  Obst. HDU & ICU are operationalized in high case load tertiary care facilities across the country to handle complicated pregnancy.
-  Reproductive and child health (RCH) portal is a name-based web-enabled tracking system for pregnant women and newborn so as to ensure seamless provision of regular and complete services to them including antenatal care, institutional delivery and post-natal care.
-  Mother and Child Protection (MCP) Card and Safe Motherhood Booklet are distributed to the pregnant women for educating them on diet, rest, danger signs of pregnancy, benefit schemes and institutional deliveries.
-  Regular IEC campaigns are conducted for greater demand generation. Health and nutrition education through mass and social media is also promoted to improve healthy practices and to generate demand for service uptake.
-  Special New-born Care Units (SNCUs) are established at District Hospital and Medical College level, New-born Stabilization Units (NBSUs) are established at First Referral Units (FRUs)/ Community Health Centres (CHCs) for care of sick and small babies.
-  Under Home Based New-born Care (HBNC) and Home-Based Care of Young Children (HBYC) program, home visits are performed by ASHAs to improve child rearing practices and to identify sick new-born and young children in the community.
-  Social Awareness and Actions to Neutralize Pneumonia Successfully (SAANS) initiative is implemented for reduction of childhood morbidity and mortality due to Pneumonia.
-  Children from 0 to 18 years of age are screened for 32 health conditions (i.e. Diseases, Deficiencies, Defects and Developmental delay) under Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK) to improve child survival. District Early Intervention Centres (DEICs) at district health facility level are established for confirmation and management of children screened under RBSK.
-  Intensified Diarrhoea Control Fortnight / Defeat Diarrhoea (D2) initiative is implemented for promoting ORS and Zinc use and for reducing diarrhoeal deaths.
-  Capacity Building programs of health care providers are taken up for improving child survival and health outcomes. Revised training package of Facility based Integrated Management of Neonatal & Childhood Illness (F-IMNCI) and Integrated Management of Neonatal & Childhood Illness (IMNCI) and revised training package of Facility Based Newborn Care (FBNC) are recently updated packages released in 2023.
-  Kilkari is a centralized interactive voice response (IVR) based mobile health service which delivers free, weekly, time-appropriate 72 audio messages about pregnancy, childbirth, and childcare directly to families' mobile phones from the second trimester of pregnancy until the child is one year old.

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