Telangana bags second place for taking Special care on new born babies

Hyderabad, Oct 12: The Telangana State has bagged second place in the country for taking special care on newborn babies.

The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) had evaluated the quality of new-born care across all the States in the country and released the data at the National Child Health review meeting in New Delhi on Tuesday.

As per the index, Telangana stands second after Haryana in the Special New-born Care Units (SNCU) Quality of Care Index. The other States which were ranked in the index include Kerala, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.

After the formation of Telangana, the Health Department had been focussing on the measures to bring down Infant Mortality Rate (IMR). According to officials, the IMR had come down from 39 to 31. It is half of the national average.

In Telangana, as many as 21 SNCUs are in operation and seven would become operational soon. In 2016, around 29,000 new-borns were treated at 21 SNCUs and more than 75 per cent new-born were discharged. Per annum around 6.50 lakh infants are born in the State and of these 15 per cent new-born require SNCU services.

Minister for Health Dr C Laxma Reddy said the vision of the Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and the Health Department has been developing swiftly. The Minister thanked K Chandrashekar Rao and the team members at SNCUs especially, paediatricians and nurses.

"The government would be planning to bring down IMR by providing infrastructure and ventilators," the Minister added.