Manipur successful in bringing down IMR rate

IMPHAL: The state Health services Director Dr Okram Ibomcha on Saturday said that Manipur has been securing the top position when it comes to reducing Infant mortality rate (IMR), which is the number of deaths of children less than one year of age per 1000 live births.
Manipur has been successful in bringing down the IMR from 20 in 2001 to around 11 from 2011 onwards which incidentally is also the IMR of 2014. This is a big achievement considering the fact that the national IMR stands at 40,saysDirector Ibomcha while speaking to media persons during a press conference organised by DIPR Manipur here on Saturday.
The mortality rate of children under 5 years of age (U5MR) for Manipur for 2015 stands at 12.5 which again is much lower than the national U5MR figure of 48. When it comes to the maternal death per 100,000 (live) births or the Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR), for India for the year 2014 is 181 deaths per 100,000 live births while for Manipur the figure is comparably very low at 60 to 70, he informed.
The director also listed the improvement in medical infrastructure and manpower in terms of doctors, nurses and other auxiliary staff s responsible for these positive indicators in health sector. There are 1389 beds under the State Health department including JNIMS while RIMS has 881 beds. Over this there are 332 beds in private hospitals making for a total of 2602 beds available in health care facilities in the state.
The number of medical doctors increased from 615 in 2003 to 1068 in 2016, while the number of dental surgeons increased from 17 to 89 during the same period. The number of patients per every doctor in the state works out to 1066 at present which is also compares very favourably with the national average of 1700 patients for one doctor.
As for nurses, the national average stands at 2500 patients for every nurse while the figure for the state is 250 patients for every nurse. This abundance of manpower contributes immensely in the improvement Manipur has been able to ensure in the health sector. In the year 2014-15, state government health institutions carried out 11517 deliveries and conducted 592 Caesarean(CS), state run JNIMS hospital carried out 3696 deliveries and conducted 1540 CS and finally , for the same period, central run RIMS hospital carried out 11192 deliveries and conducted 3583 CS, he added. There are four fully functional blood banks in the state, namely at RIMS, JNIMS,Thoubal District Hospital and at Churachandpur District Hospital besides another one at the Shija Hospital.
He informed that there are 85 Primary Health Centre (PHC) in the state out of which 72 are recognized as delivery points. To be counted as delivery point, a PHC should carry out 6 deliveries per month, CHC should carry out 10 deliveries per month and if the CHC has operation facilities it should carry out 20 deliveries per month. For a district hospital, the figure is 30 deliveries per month while for a medical college it is 50 deliveries per month.
The vastly improved infrastructure and increased manpower has made the PHCs, CHCs and district hospitals very efficient which has decreased the burden of RIMS. Citing an example, he said RIMS is now carrying out only about 800 deliveries per month in these days whereas the figure used to hover around 1000 deliveries some years back.
The director also cited many benefits extended to patients like the facility of availing ambulance service by dialing 102 for emergency purposes. Other benefits offered by the Health Department include reimbursement of upto Rs 150 lakh in a year to BPL. For upto Rs 50,000 the DC and the CMO can settle the matter at their level while for amount above this, it has to go upto to the state government level.