Over 23L ‘missing deliveries’ in MP, shows CAG data

Over 23 lakh “missing deliveries” were reported in Madhya Pradesh between 2011 and 2016, which might have an impact on the skewed sex ratio of 52:48 at birth in the state, as per a report of the comptroller and auditor general (CAG) of India on the general and social sectors. The report was submitted in the state assembly on Friday.

Painting a grim picture of the status of MP’s healthcare, the report said that in the period, 93.7 lakh pregnant women were registered for antenatal care (ANC) but there were only 69.8 lakh deliveries.

So what happened to the 23.8 lakh missing deliveries?

According to 2011 statistics, the sex ratio in the state was 912 females per 1,000 males against the national ratio of 914.

The skewed ratio was attributed to the declining ratio at birth and poor care for the girl child.

Though the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) seeks to address this challenge by regulating the pre-conception and pre-natal diagnostic techniques misused for sex selection, the data shows that between 2011-12 and 2015-16, 33.36 lakh female child births were reported compared to 35.89 lakh male child births in the same period.

Stressing that continued skewed sex ratio at birth in MP ought to have been reviewed, the report said the case of “missing deliveries” was being addressed by strengthening reporting mechanism from private hospitals and deliveries at home, according to the principal secretary health.

“The reply (of the principal secretary) was not acceptable as there was no improvement in sex ratio from 2012 to 2015-2016.

This difference between pregnant women registered for ANC and total delivery cases showed a lack of follow-up and tracking of registered ANCs by groundlevel health workers and other monitoring authorities,” said the report.

Amulya Nidhi from Jan Swasthya Abhiyan, an NGO working in the health sector, said the report has exposed the claims of the state government with regard to improvement in healthcare.

“What happened to 23 lakh pregnancies? Were they terminated for seeking more male children, as the data shows?

Or the authorities just didn’t bother to follow up once they registered pregnant women for ANC?” he asked.

Talking about other shortcomings, the report said MP could not attain the goals for the infant and maternal mortality rates and it lagged far behind the achievements of other states. The IMR (infant mortality rate) of the state was 51 per 1,000 live births as against the national average of 40 per 1,000 live births.