Bhubaneswar: In another significant step towards maternal and child health care, State Government have expanded the Caesarean Section (C-Section) Audit of delivery cases to all private hospitals.
Director Family Welfare issued instructions to the Chief District Medical and Public Health Officers (CDMPHO) of all districts and Urban bodies to this effect last evening.
They were asked to ensure implementation of the Audit in their respective areas of jurisdiction from 1st May of the current year. It may be pertinent to mention here that previously C-Section Audit was being done in all Government health facilities.
Available data showed that there was a sharp increase in caesarean deliveries between the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-4 of 2015-16 and NFHS-5 of 2019-21.
During this period, C-Section increased from 53.7% to 70.7% which was higher than the ideal C-Section rate recommended by the WHO Panel of reproductive child health.
The Panel after re-examining the C-Section Rate in 2015 also mentioned, “At the population level, caesarean section rates higher than 10% are not associated with reductions in maternal and newborn mortality rates”. This indicated the need for addressing the cause of the C-Section rise in the State.
In view of this, Government expanded the C-Section Audit system to all private health facilities as well.
For this purpose, three different prototype audit formats were worked out and circulated to all districts. At the first level, the audit would be done as per specifications in Format-A which would be compiled in Format-B. The CDMPHOs after due scrutiny would submit the report to the Directorate in Format-C.
Each CDMPHO was also asked to designate a programme officer for coordinating with private health facilities regarding the proper implementation of the C-Section Audit. Medical experts said that outcomes of the audit would be helpful in making reproductive child health care more effective in the coming years.
