Thousands die needlessly giving birth in India

The deaths of tens of thousands of Indian women during pregnancy, childbirth or soon after, could be prevented, says a report just out. A healthcare system wrought with poor planning, caste discrimination and limited emergency care is to blame says The Human Rights Watch (HRW), which wrote the report. And these women are dying in spite of government programmes guaranteeing free maternal health care, it points out.

One out of every 70 Indian women who reach reproductive age will die because of pregnancy, childbirth or during unsafe abortions, the findings show. "For an emerging global economic power famous for its medical prowess, India continues to have unacceptably high maternal mortality levels," the report said. Aruna Kashyap, a lead researcher on the report, summed it up simply: "Seventy-five per cent of maternal deaths in India are preventable." The problems range from badly trained healthcare staff to crippling fees poor villagers simply can’t afford — $10 for a delivery in some clinics, plus $1 to cut the umbilical cord and $1 for the delivery room cleaner, according to Associated Press news agency. Those costs might not seem like much but many Indian villagers support their families on less than $2 a day, and are just not able to save.

The study, No Tally of the Anguish: Accountability in Maternal Health Care in India, focuses on the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, India's most heavily populated. The state has the highest maternal mortality rate in the country and is among the most backward in India with abysmal health care systems. Only about one in 100 community health centres in Uttar Pradesh have storage facilities for blood. In many smaller hospitals, even minor complications often mean that mothers have to be driven more than 60 miles over bad roads to larger hospitals.

Caste discrimination is another problem. Sixty-one per cent of maternal deaths in northern regions were among Dalits — as "untouchables" are now called — and the indigenous people known as tribals. Both communities are at the very bottom of India's complex social ladder, and are far more likely to live without equal access to jobs, education or health care. Cutting maternal deaths is one of India’s major health priorities, which have made maternal health care free for poor women. Even though the country classes it as a health priority, monitoring is so poor there is no reliable record of how many women dying each year, and whether these initiatives are reaching those who need it the most, the report says.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children