December 31, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 02,1430

UMERKOT, Dec 30: A huge number of 51 women died over two years in the district from complications in the course of delivery, mostly due to lack of healthcare facilities, abject poverty and unawareness, a survey carried out by Health and Nutrition Development Society (Hands), an NGO, revealed.

Umerkot has one district headquarters hospital, three taluka hospitals, three rural health centres (RHCs), one mother and child healthcare centre, five reproductive health services centres, 11 family welfare centres, 33 basic health units (BHUs), one eye hospital, 30 government dispensaries and six maternity homes but they fail to cater to the needs of a population of 858,376.

The available health facilities could cater to the needs of 19,075 people, with 0.01 doctors for 1,000 people and 0.001 female paramedics for 1,000 women, said the survey report

The infant mortality rate was 93 per 1000 and maternal mortality rate stood at 600 per 100,000, almost double as compared to national data, according to district health department.

The report said that 6,000 households were surveyed, which revealed that 51 women died over two years during delivery and 71 per cent women had no access to family planning facilities, 83 per cent of population was deprived of maternal healthcare facility, 50 per cent had no access to lady health workers and the ratio of immunisation was only 37 per cent in the district.

The LHW-covered areas were less than the non-covered areas in the district as the rural population of 398,632 living in 486 villages was covered by the LHW programme, whereas a large number of 459,744 was deprived of formal health delivery system, it said.

The reproductive system of

70 per cent women was badly affected due to marriage in minor age, which was traditional in the region and four per cent pregnant women visited government hospitals during pregnancy period while delivery of 70 per cent women was carried out at their homes by untrained traditional birth attendants and 26 per cent gave birth at private clinics.

The report disclosed that 63 per cent population was unaware about immunisation and precautionary measures against epidemics.

District Population Welfare Officer Ghulam Rasool Memon said that the department’s staff needed four-wheel vehicles to reach far-flung areas of Thar. They had to hold camps in remote areas in the desert to be near people because they could not move women from their villages to family welfare centre, he said.

EDO of Health Dr Umer

Rind said that a number of villages had no access to LHWs as the department faced shortage of LHWs. The department would make new recruitments soon to meet the requirement, he said.

He said that traditionally, most families did not allow their women to visit town hospitals and in case of severe complications, mostly due to poverty, family heads tried to avoid delivery expenses, therefore, they preferred delivery by unskilled birth attendants.

He said that lack of gynaecologists at the state-run hospitals was another reason of deliveries being carried out by traditional birth attendants.