India fails to check maternal deaths: Human Rights Watch

NEW DELHI - India is falling behind other nations in meeting international commitments to improve obstetric care as it does not adequately monitor deaths and injuries in the critical period following childbirth, an NGO working on human rights said Wednesday.

In the backdrop of a global meet of health experts that concluded late last month, the NGO Human Rights Watch said the key to progress in maternal health is ensuring that women with pregnancy complications are able to get appropriate care during childbirth.

“However, this is not happening in India even though it has started healthcare programmes that guarantee free obstetric care to rural women,” said Aruna Kashyap, researcher for the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch.

“India should be a leader in protecting and monitoring womens sexual and reproductive health. Yet women here continue to die entirely preventable deaths, and health authorities do not track down the reasons or do what is needed to rectify the health system,” he added.

According to the NGO, the government counts the number of births in health clinics and hospitals, but these are often woefully under-resourced and under-staffed. Many women die or suffer serious injury after giving birth under these circumstances.

“The Indian government does not monitor what happens to women after childbirth, especially in the following 24 to 72 critical hours, when the chances of dying are the highest. Without this information, it cannot save women who go back home and die or develop long-lasting complications,” Kashyap said.

“The government treats the huge increase of institutional deliveries as progress - 20 million women gave birth in health facilities across India between mid-2005 and March 2009. However, there is no reliable information on what percentage of these 20 million women actually survived after childbirth or suffered complications after being discharged,” she added.

Unless India can draw up a time-bound plan of action for independent certification and monitoring of public and private health facilities as quality care providers, there is no guarantee that women giving birth in health facilities are receiving the skilled birth attendance needed to save them, Kashyap said.

“The Indian government should change its approach to monitoring and examine whether women with pregnancy-related complications are in fact getting the kind of treatment they need and whether they are surviving childbirth in the postpartum period,” she added.