Maternity huts set up in flood-hit areas of Bihar

Patna, Aug 30 (UNI) In a joint collaboration with the UNICEF Bihar government came forward with an innovative idea for providing medicare facilities to the expecting mothers in the flood-affected areas and set up ''Maternity Huts'' at such places.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today visited one of such maternity hut established at Bargamma Gachi village in Kalyanpur block of Samastipur district and applauded the joint efforts of the Health department and UNICEF for providing such a vital health service to the women affected by the floods.He said such centres would provide maternity services including antenatal care and safe delivery for flood affected women.

Visibly happy,he even said ''Please distribute sweets on my behalf when the first delivery takes place here''.

The maternity hut which had been set up around two days earlier provided antenatal care to 21 women and from among the same, a delivery is expected at any moment.

The maternity hut is manned by four Auxiliary Nurse Midwife's four paramedical staff and three doctors on rotation duty.

Electricity for the same has been ensured through a generator and all basic equipments, apparatus and furniture such as beds, delivery kits, sanitary sheets, towels, medicines etc. have been provided to ensure safe deliveries.

The Maternity Hut also has an Out Patient Department (OPD) which caters to opportunistic ailments such as diarrhoea, skin infections, worms and others. Within the last two days, around 1100 patients had already been treated.

The Health department and UNICEF plan to set up eight more maternity huts within the next three days in flood affected areas of the state where maternity services have been impaired by the onslaught of floods.

Mr Bijaya Rajbhandari, State Representative of UNICEF said that ''in natural calamites such as these women and children suffer the most. The suffering is further compounded for women who are pregnant or supposed to deliver due to lack of antenatal and delivery services. Being able to deliver in a clean, hygienic environment by a skilled birth attendant could mean the difference between life and death for both the mother and child.

UNI