Institutional deliveries in Telangana State record highest in country

Hyderabad: Telangana State stood tenth overall in "Healthy States, Progressive India: Report on Rank of States and UTs" done by NITI Aayog, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and The World Bank that was released in New Delhi on Monday.

Telangana State was included in the list of 21 larger States also comprising Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and West Bengal.

The Index is a composite score incorporating 23 indicators covering key aspects of health sector performance with major weightage to the outcomes.

Among the 21 larger States, seven States improved their rankings from base year ( 2015-16) to reference year ( 2017-18). These States are Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Haryana, Assam and Rajasthan.

A big improvement was seen in the proportion of institutional deliveries ( 91.68 percent from the previous 6 per cent), full immunisation coverage (90.31 percent from the previous 1.22 percent), sex ratio at birth, total fertility rate etc like indicators.

However, it also highlighted that 50 per cent of specialist doctors positions were vacant in District Hospitals also stressing on the shortage of staff nurses and ANMs in PHCs and CHCs.

Institutional deliveries in Telangana State was registered as 91.68 per cent in 2017-18, which is the highest in the country and a large part of the credit must go to Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao's flagship scheme-KCR Kits.

Based on the administrative data from the Union Health Ministry, only six States and UTs had more than 90 percent institutional deliveries conducted in private or public health facilities.

Telangana was followed by Gujarat, Kerala, Mizoram, Puducherry and Chandigarh, which all registered more than 90 percent institutional deliveries.