India’s Newborn Action Plan - improving newborn survival
By: Newton Isaac, Director - Government Relations, World Vision India
“Unless health becomes accessible like other rights guaranteed by the constitution, children will remain outside the periphery of all health services and entitlement. World Vision India believes that universal healthcare access is key to realization of the Right to Health for all people.” said Dr. Vijay Edward, Director – Health, World Vision India.
India has drastically reduced maternal and under-five child mortality over the past two decades. However, progress to reduce newborn deaths and stillbirths has been much slower. India has one of the highest burdens of neonatal mortality and stillbirths in the world, with 750,000 babies dying each year within their first month of life. This represents 56% of all deaths of children under five years in India. Most of these deaths are preventable with the knowledge and effective interventions that are available today.
Today, the Government of India is launching India’s Newborn Action Plan (INAP) in response to the country’s unacceptable high burden of newborn mortality. #INAP represents India’s renewed commitment to end preventable newborn deaths and stillbirths and reduce maternal deaths, based on the latest evidence on effective, life-saving interventions.
World Vision India welcomes the launch of the INAP and offers its support as a key partner to the government in the implementation of this crucial initiative across the country. We work in over 6200 urban, rural and tribal communities, spread across 163 districts in 25 states, and impacting the lives of more than 26 lakh (2.6 million) children.
There is great potential to save lives through expanding coverage of targeted, low cost interventions, in alignment with the Every Newborn Action Plan (ENAP) endorsed at the World Health Assembly in May 2014. India’s Newborn Action Plan is guided by the principles of integration, equity, gender, quality of care, convergence, accountability and partnerships and builds on six pillars of intervention packages, including: preconception and antenatal care; care during labour and child birth; immediate new born care; care of healthy newborns; care of small and sick newborn and care beyond newborn survival.
Through a comprehensive framework for implementation, monitoring and evaluation and clear targets, all stakeholders will work together to scale up the proposed interventions in order to reach the goals of a “Single Digit” neonatal mortality rate and a “Single Digit” Stillbirth rate by 2030, in line with the global #EveryNewborn targets. India’s current neonatal mortality rate is 29 per 1,000 live births and stillbirth rate is 22 per 1,000 live births, so there is a great deal of progress to be made.
On 9th September, World Vision India together with Indian Child Abuse Neglect & Child Labour (ICANCL), Indian Academy of Pediatrics Delhi (IACLAN), India Alliance for Child Rights and All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) hosted a consultation on the ‘Right to Health’ to create awareness on child health and child rights. During this event, World Vision highlighted the unacceptable disparities in newborn survival between different socio-economic groups and between States in India. Many miss out on life-saving health services because they live in locations without access to care or since they belong to communities that are discriminated against. Scheduled Castes and Tribes, particularly those living in less developed States, are the most disadvantaged of all groups. Neonatal mortality rates vary from 49 deaths per 1,000 live births in Uttar Pradesh to 8 deaths per 1,000 deaths in Kerala.
World Vision India has called for the Government of India to strengthen its focus on the most vulnerable mothers and babies in the implementation of the INAP, and to ensure equitable access to universal, quality health services free at the point of use, address social determinants of health, and ensure that every child and mother is counted through expanding and improving health management information systems and civil registration and vital statistics. It is also critical that the government engages both civil society and communities in the planning, monitoring and quality assurance of health services.
India’s triumph over polio has proven that it is possible to reach even the most hard-to-reach and vulnerable children with life-saving health interventions despite demographic, economic, and socio-cultural challenges. The great possibility, and simultaneously the key challenge, for India is to now ensure that INAP is implemented so that it translates into measurable improvements in the survival and health of India’s most vulnerable children, towards the target of ending preventable newborn deaths and stillbirths.