ABSTRACT
Background: Lack of motorized transport in remote areas and cash in resourceconstrained settings are major obstacles to women accessing skilled care when giving birth. To address these issues, a cashless voucher transport scheme to enable women to give birth in a health-care institution, covering poor and marginalized women, was initiated by the National Rural Health Mission in selected districts of India in 2009. Methods: The access to and utilization of the voucher scheme were assessed between December 2010 and February 2011 through a qualitative study in the district of Purulia, West Bengal, India. Data were collected from in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with women, front-line health-care workers, programme managers and service providers. Results: The main factors influencing coverage and utilization of the scheme were: reliance on ill-prepared gram panchayats (village councils) for identification of eligible women; poor birth preparedness initiatives by health-care workers; overreliance on telephone communication; restricted availability of vehicles, especially at night and in remote areas; no routine monitoring; drivers’ demand for extra money in certain situations; and low reimbursement for drivers for long-distance travel. Conclusion: Departure from guidelines, ritualistic implementation and little stress on preparedness of both the community and the health system were major obstacles. Increased enthusiasm among stakeholders and involvement of the community would provide opportunities for strengthening the scheme.
ABSTRACT
Integrated Child Development Services, a national programme of the Government of India has health, nutrition, and pre-school education components of services. To ascertain awareness, perception of mothers about functioning and different services of ICDS a cross-sectional community based study was conducted between June to September 2007 in Howrah and Purulia districts of West Bengal. A total of 1235 mothers were included as study subjects. As per opinion of the mothers 73% AWCs opened regularly, behaviour of the AWWs was friendly (71.6%) and 63% mothers opined that ICDS is beneficial to their children. 84.2% mothers were aware of any ICDS services. Quantity and quality of supplementary food was acceptable to 88% and 72.7% mothers respectively. 79.2% and 87.5% mothers did not receive any advice on child feeding and growth chart. Making beneficiaries aware about services by targeted interventions will ensure better utilization of ICDS.
ABSTRACT
Process indicators have been recommended for monitoring the availability and use of emergency obstetric care (EmOC) services. A health facility-based study was carried out in 2002 in four districts of West Bengal, India, to analyze these process indicators. Relevant records and registers for 2001 of all studied facilities in the districts were reviewed to collect data using a pre-designed schedule. The numbers of basic and comprehensive EmOC facilities were inadequate in all the four districts compared to the minimum acceptable level. Overall, 26.2% of estimated annual births took place in the EmOC facilities (ranged from 16.2% to 45.8% in 4 districts) against the required minimum of 15%. The rate of caesarean section calculated for all expected births in the population varied from 3.5% to 4.4% in the four districts with an overall rate of 4%, which is less than the minimum target of 5%. Only 29.9% of the estimated number of complications (which is 15% of all births) was managed in the EmOC facilities. The combined case-fatality rate in the basic/comprehensive EmOC facilities was 1.7%. Major obstetric complications contributed to 85.7% of maternal deaths, and pre-eclampsia/eclampsia was the most common cause. It can be concluded that all the process indicators, except proportion of deliveries in the EmOC facilities, were below the acceptable level. Certain priority measures, such as making facilities fully functional, effective referral and monitoring system, skill-based training, etc., are to be emphasized to improve the situation.