Open letter to CM — An appeal for a healthier UP
Dear Chief Minister, I congratulate you on your assuming charge of India’s most populous state after such a historic electoral victory. With great expectations, we look forward to five productive years that could potentially see UP’s transition towards an inclusive development.
One of the most important ways in which you could ensure greater progress is by ensuring the best of health and nutrition to all of UP’s residents. Committed members of civil society are with you in the common pursuit of better lives for the citizens.
THE CHALLENGES
The situation on the ground does not appear to be promising as evident from the following data:
1. More than 1,000 children under the age of five die every day across UP.
2. More than 650 children in UP die due to malnutrition every day.
3. Every second adolescent girl and woman in UP is anaemic.
4. Only one male sterilisation takes place for every 60 women who get sterilised in UP
5. Half the state’s children under two years of age are not fully immunised.
6. UP has an under-5 mortality rate of 78 per 1,000 live births, compared to the national average of 50.
7. UP has a maternal mortality ratio of 285 deaths per 1,00,000 live births as opposed to the national average of 167.
By the time you complete your term, India would turn 75 as an independent nation. Backed with healthcare skills, opportunities knock UP’s doors to bring about a substantive change.
REDUCING MATERNAL DEATHS
To reduce the dismal rates of preventable maternal deaths in UP, your government must focus on interventions that address healthcare needs at the most crucial stages of the life cycle. We must ensure that:
1. All women have access to contraceptive methods of their choice through greater convergence between public and private sector service providers, and are able to decide whether, when, and how many children they want.
2. Campaign is launched to encourage men to take up an equal share of responsibility that would help women regain control of decisions about their own health. Couples should be counselled to practice postpartum family planning, suggesting spacing of three years between births to prevent hemorrhaging, preterm births and low birth weight infants.
3. Cent per cent early registration of pregnancy (in first trimester) happens and all women receive 3-4 ante natal care (ANC) check-ups during pregnancy. These two interventions, which are necessary for grassroots health workers to identify high-risk pregnancies and refer them to specialised health facilities, are central to ending preventable maternal deaths.
LOWERING UNDER-5 CHILD MORTALITY
To see a reduction in the number of under-5 deaths, your government must ensure that:
1. Each and every child in Uttar Pradesh receives full immunisation under the Village Health and Nutrition Days (VHNDs) and Mission Indradhanush.
2. Higher uptake in public health facilities of innovative low-cost, high-impact interventions such as Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC), early initiation of breastfeeding within an hour of birth, and counselling on exclusive breastfeeding during the first six months of life, initiation of complementary feeding after six months, along with public campaigns to dispel myths about newborn child care that put babies at risk.
NUTRITION FOR WOMEN, CHILDREN & ADOLESCENTS
Let us commit to ensure that every child, adolescent and woman receives adequate nutrition, so that we can keep anaemia malnutrition at bay by ensuring the following steps:
1. Bring improvement in the management and efficacy of nutrition rehabilitation centres (NRCs), which provide 15 days of emergency care for severely acute malnourished children.
2. Women with low hemoglobin levels are at a much higher risk of dying in the event of complications arising during pregnancy. An adequate supply of IFA tablets must be ensured.
Let us improve preventive healthcare across UP through new medical tools, technologies, skill and other innovations. Yours sincerely, JAYANT KRISHNA Friends of UP Coalition