Tamil Nadu Government Launches War Room to Cut Maternal Deaths

Chennai: The first meeting of the “State Level Task Force” for reduction of maternal mortality decided to set up a “War Room” at the office of the National Health Mission consisting of a dedicated team of 6 doctors, 2 each from DME, DMS and DPH, and technical officers headed by an Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to give complete round the clock focus on comprehensive pre-birth planning.

The “War Room” will monitor the birth planning through ‘102' call centres and the task force urged the DME, DMS and DPH, shall prepare a detailed pre-birth planning mechanism for each delivery including data from the private sector, the meeting held at the Secretariat on Tuesday decided.

DPH was asked to carefully look at the availability of resources including availability of doctors, staff nurses, medicines, blood etc. at those PHCs where deliveries are scheduled and the task force decided that women with specific risk factors including diabetes, hypertension, anaemia and other health issues should be scheduled for delivery only in Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC) centres which are well equipped to take care of any emergency.

The meeting that brought together key stakeholders to address the maternal mortality rate (MMR) was presided over by Chairperson of the MMR Task Force and additional chief secretary Supriya Sahu, principal secretary D Karthikeyan, social welfare department secretary Jayashree Muralidharan and senior officials from the Health and Family Welfare department.

MMR refers to the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births and Tamil Nadu continues to make significant progress in reducing MMR. As per the latest Sample Registration System (SRS) data from 2020, Tamil Nadu’s MMR stands at 54 per 100,000 live births, below the national average of 97 per 100,000.

The maternal death audit launched by the State in 2004 has identified five most important causes for maternal mortality. They are Postpartum Haemorrhage (20%), Hypertensive disorders in pregnancy (19%), Sepsis (10%), Heart disease (9%), Abortion (4%) and others (38%), an official press release said.