THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, July 18: Palamu administration cracks whip against illegal, fake and unauthorized nursing homes and hospitals.
Palamu DC Sameera S has issued a fiat for this. At a recent review meeting of the National Health Mission, Sameera S asked the Civil Surgeon Dr Anil Kumar Sriwastaw, to take stern action against all fake private nursing homes and hospitals.
Fake private nursing homes and hospitals are adding to the infant and maternal mortality both in Palamu. It’s fatuous to assume that registered private nursing homes and hospitals have no instance of infant and maternal mortality. These too have. The difference is that the registered ones under the Clinical Establishment Act, are accountable more than the one room or two room fake nursing homes and hospitals which shut down after any such casualties and vanish into thin air.
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Warning Issued to Private Healthcare Facilities
Civil Surgeon Dr Anil Kumar Sriwastaw held a meeting with private nursing homes and hospitals and advised them to get registered first before the law takes on them.
As per the statistics available for the infant mortality with the District Health Society, it is 28 per 1,000 in India, 38 per 1,000 in Jharkhand and 25 per 1,000 in Palamu.
The Maternal Mortality Rate in Palamu is far, far higher than Jharkhand state and India. It is 521 per one lakh live births here in Palamu which is 156 per one lakh live births in Jharkhand and 113 per one lakh in India.
Civil Surgeon Dr Sriwastaw told this correspondent, “Fake private nursing homes and hospitals have sprouted fast. It will be thumbed down with the force of law.”
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Bihar Border Areas See Surge in Unlicensed Clinics
Dr Sriwastaw agreed the menace of the private nursing homes and hospitals is more in the bordering areas of Palamu with Bihar. He said, “So-called doctors come from Bihar, conduct deliveries here in Jharkhand’s Palamu, collect hefty fees and go back.”
Sources said the Harihurganj block/ police station is right on the Bihar border. It’s an aspirational block. Here are more fake and unauthorized nursing homes and hospitals than the private so called English medium schools!
Lady doctors are quite countable in Palamu. This dearth of lady doctors also aggravates the situation of delivery in remote areas where quacks and ill-trained ‘delivery hands’ play with the lives of the patients.
Low Institutional Delivery, High Immunization Raise Red Flags
Sources said DC Sameera S was irked to find just 62 percent of institutional normal delivery. She wanted institutional normal delivery to be encouraged and improved.
Civil Surgeon Dr Sriwastaw said, “The registered private nursing homes and hospitals do not upload the delivery report in the portal dedicated to it. They have been asked to upload all cases of deliveries in the concerned portal. Our officials will help them do it.”
One interesting fact is that institutional normal delivery and institutional C-section peg at 62 and 5 per cent, but the immunization coverage is 88 per cent as per the report of the District Health Society Palamu.
The Civil Surgeon said, “It’s time now to find out where these 21 per cent children got born whose birth is not reported, but for immunisation their parents line up at the government session of immunization.”
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Birth Registration Gaps Highlighted
The Jharkhand Story correspondent brings its research findings that there is still a gap of 20 per cent in birth registration in Palamu.
The average national percentage of birth registration is 80 per cent (figure quoted in 2023-24) while in Jharkhand it’s 60 per cent.
The District Health Society is expected to launch a simultaneous campaign for birth registration/ death registration as mandated by the Birth and Death Registration Act 1969.
About institutional cesearean delivery, it’s 5 per cent in the government health hub. There is a lack of anaesthetists in Palamu. A few private registered hospitals hire the services of retired anaesthetists. Fake and unregistered private nursing homes and hospitals just do anything to make up for anaesthetists.
