Contact Your Financial Adviser Money Making MC
28 September 2016
 |
| Malnourishedchildren(The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions) |
Of
5 million malnourished children under five in Bihar, no more than 0.3 per cent,
or one in 340 -- at best -- can be treated at the state's 38 nutrition
rehabilitation centres (NRCs), the first line of primary care against a
condition that can permanently inhibit future potential in a region with
India's youngest population.
There
is one NRC for every Bihar district, serving roughly an area of 100 sq km,
according to Right to Information (RTI) appeals that we filed. Bihar, India's
third-most-populous state, has the country's greatest proportion of young
people, with a median age of 20 years, as IndiaSpend previously reported.
Each
NRC has either 10 or 20 beds, and assuming each child is treated for 20 days --
the average time needed -- each NRC treats about 365 children in a year. That
means Bihar's NRCs -- assuming they have 20 beds and round-the-year service,
which is not the case -- treat 13,870 children, or 0.3%. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Witnessed
most in the form of under-nutrition, malnutrition is mainly caused by not
having enough to eat, not eating enough of the right things or being unable to
use the food that one does eat. It manifests generally in one or more of these
forms: Stunting (very low height for age), underweight (very low weight for
age) and wasting (very low weight for height).
Up
to 40 per cent of children at risk of death relapse into malnutrition
No
more than 8,539 children were admitted in 2013-14 to the 38 NRCs; meaning only
66 per cent of the capacity (13,870) was utilised. As many as 11 of the 38 NRCs
utilised less than 20 per cent of capacity, while four treated more than 300
children each -- which is more than 80 per cent of capacity. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
An
equally -- if not more-worrisome issue is children who relapse into
malnutrition after treatment. Between 30 per cent and 40 per cent of families
reported a relapse within a month of discharge. No more than 41 per cent of the
families visited the NRCs for the eight-week follow-up programme, RTI data
showed. The Total Investment & Insurance
Solutions
Of
Bihar's estimated 100,000 "severely acute" malnourished children --
children who have one of the lowest growth rates and, as a consequence, risk
death -- no more than 0.5 percent, or 500 children, stand a chance of being
treated at these NRCs and 200 children can be treated fully.
Along
with Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh, Bihar has India's highest proportion of
malnourished children -- more than half, according to the Rapid Survey on
Children and the National Family Health Survey-4. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
India
ranks third in Asia and 24th worldwide for the number of malnourished children
aged one to five, according to the 2015 Global Hunger Index.
A
possible solution to treating Bihar's malnourished children might be to do away
with the specialised 20-bed NRCs. Instead, primary health centres (PHCs)
located in every block (a group of 10-15 panchayats, village councils) can take
over NRC responsibilities.
The
general public is not aware of the existence of NRCs, and if they are, these
centres are too far away. The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
There
are other options, such as community management of acute malnutrition,
implemented in Bihar by Doctors without Borders, a global NGO.
The
government's Sneha Shivir programme to implement specialised camps in anganwadi
(childcare) centres and facilitate door-to-door malnutrition-specific care
appears to be a step in the right direction, but is yet to be started. The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
Relapse
can be addressed using phone calls for reminders, and follow-ups through
automated phone calls and messages. The Total
Investment & Insurance Solutions
While
the central government has approved a proposal from the Bihar government to
increase the number of NRCs across Bihar, there is no apparent progress.
Many
governments of poor states, including Bihar, hope to bring down the proportion
of malnourished children to less than 30 per cent by 2018; this appears
ambitious because these targets do not match the work on the ground.The Total Investment & Insurance Solutions
No comments:
Post a Comment