Dismal show: Haryana slips on health parameters

ROHTAK:THOUGH Haryana ranked better than states like Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar in the Niti Aayog health index, it showed the least improvement in health parameters and got progressively worse in 2016 compared to 2015. The Niti Aayog report, titled ‘Healthy states, Progressive India’, released Friday, took 2014-15 as the base year and 2015-16 as reference year.

Haryana was ranked 13th out of 21 larger states in overall performance with a composite index score of 46.97, slipping one rank and losing 2.90 points from the previous year. Kerala was ranked first while UP took the lowest spot in rankings.

Nonetheless, UP showed signs of improvement in health parameters with a 53% proportion of

health indicators falling in the categories of ‘most improved’ and ‘improved’, and just 23% falling in categories of ‘deteriorated’ and ‘most deteriorated’.

In case of Haryana, however, a maximum 43% health indicators fell in the categories of ‘deteriorated’ and ‘most deteriorated’ while only 30% fell in the categories of ‘improved’ and ‘most improved’.

The Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR), or the number of deaths occurring in the first 28 days of the birth of a child, increased in Haryana from 23 in 2014-15 to 24 in 2015-16.

The Under Five Mortality Rate (U5MR), which indicates the probability of a child dying before attaining the age of 5, also increased in Haryana from 40 to 43.