Mumbai: The state health department has been conducting workshops for gynecologists to curb maternal deaths and to ensure Maharashtra maintains its ranks in controlling the mortality rate. As per the data, 412 deaths have been recorded during April-September across the state, which means per month more than 80 maternal deaths are being reported.
Experts believe the pandemic has led to a surge in maternal deaths due to which patients couldn’t avail of healthcare facilities on time.
Maharashtra ranked 2nd in bringing down mortality
Senior health officials from the Public Health Department said that they were ranked second last year behind Kerala in bringing down the maternal mortality rate.
“Our aim was to train obstetrician-gynecologists (OB-GYNs) on how to reduce maternal deaths and how to properly investigate each death and devise a strategy accordingly. Over 60 gynaecologists from state civil hospitals, government medical colleges, and civic body-run maternity centers took part in the workshop. We had also started ‘Mission Lakshya’ on ensuring that labour rooms and operation theatres at rural and district hospitals are oriented to the latest protocols, quality improvement processes, and respectful maternity care.” he said.
Poor infrastructure key reason behind deaths
However, at the workshop doctors were asked to ensure each maternal death was reviewed at the earliest. “Most of the time deaths have occurred during transportation as many districts lack good roads due to which arriving at the hospitals gets delayed. For which we have instructed all doctors to create awareness of 108 Ambulance services which are well equipped with a doctor and cardiac facilities to keep the patient stable until they reach the hospital,” said an official.
The state health department cited several reasons for not knowing the exact cause of death as most of the time families refuse to conduct post-mortem.
“Planning everything on paper is easy but at ground level is difficult to implement. We being gynaecologists have to suffer a lot from patients' relatives as it is difficult to make them understand the cause of death,” said one of the gynaecologists.
Last year, Maharashtra had done significant work in bringing down the maternal mortality rate from 38 per one lakh live births to 33 per lakh live births.
Statistics:
Deaths during Apr-Sep: 412
2018-19: 1,241
2022-23: 1,217
Leading causes
Acute post-partum haemorrhage: 19%
Hypertension: 17%
