PATNA: Increasing mobile density across Bihar can be of big help in reaching proper medicare to even the rural areas and improving reproductive health, specially infant, maternal and neonatal death rates in the state.
“Mobiles can be used effectively to ensure proper government supervision as well as to guide health workers on how to attend to the medical needs of expectant mothers and newborn babies,” said Population Council’s M E Khan at a consultative meeting on `Information communication technology for improving family health outcomes in Bihar’ here on Thursday.
Bihar contributes the largest number of newborn baby and child deaths in the country, Khan said and attributed the poor scenario to dismal performance of family planning measures. According to him, if 70 to 80% children are breast- fed within an hour of birth, deaths occurring within 28 days of birth could be reduced by at least 18%. He prescribed a two-year gap between first delivery and next pregnancy to prevent maternal and infant mortality.
Population Council, supported by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, is into developing a behaviour change communication strategy to influence family health behaviours which could reduce maternal death and improve the health of newborn babies.
Khan said that one of the ways through which behavioural changes could be brought about was increased use of information technology, particularly mobiles, for dissemination of information. “Our study in rural Bihar suggests that while two-thirds of men own a mobile, 19% of women too do so,” he said and described the figures as an attractive pointer to mobile density.
The meet hailed Baghpat district magistrate Mayur Maheshwari and another IAS officer Vijay Anand for their unique health care initiative termed `Aarogyam-A doctor in pocket’. “It’s an end-to-end community-based digital health mapping and pregnancy mapping programme that reaches health care for the entire family at the doorstep,” Maheshwari said.
Initially launched in two UP districts Baghpat and JP Nagar, Aarogyam uses Interactive Voice Response System and telecom to ensure automatic delivery of alerts/SMSes in vernacular language about all aspects of child immunisation, antenatal care and safe delivery as well as about the medical needs of newborn babies and lactating mothers.
“The government has now institutionalised the system and extended it to seven districts, thus making it sustainable,” Maheshwari said and added the best part of the Aarogyam initiative is the involvement and accountability of service delivery providers.
Arvind Kumar of Bihar’s State Health Society informed the gathering about some of the initiatives taken in the state to improve reproductive health.
Population Council consultant Atanu Garai, Unicef’s Bihar state representative Yameen Mazumdar, Hope Foundation’s Rachna Sujoy and New Initiative’s Ramakrishnan Ganesan also shared their expertise and experiences in the subject with the gathering.
Read more: Plea for mobile usage to improve reproductive health – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/patna/Plea-for-mobile-usage-to-improve-reproductive-health/articleshow/7114807.cms#ixzz18On9j9uY