Rajasthan Government To Screen Pregnant Women After 18 Maternal Deaths

Following the deaths of 18 pregnant women in two months in government hospitals in Kota, Bikaner, Jodhpur, Bhilwara and Banswara and an intense media scrutiny, including by NDTV, the Rajasthan government has ordered an urgent statewide screening of all expecting women, focusing on identifying anaemia and high-risk pregnancies.

The state's Health Minister, Gajendra Singh Khimsar, met experts on Monday. He also visited two hospitals in Bhilwara and Banswara to ascertain the cause of these deaths. He also said the deaths are still a mystery.

Women Battling Disease Struggle To Cope

Meanwhile, five women battling kidney failure after childbirth at Kota Medical College Hospital have now warned the administration that they will launch a protest if their demands are not met. They have submitted a memorandum to the district collector asking for justice.

The families have threatened that if their demands are not met, they will stop undergoing dialysis.

According to the families of the women, all of them were admitted to the hospital for delivery between May 4 and May 8.

During treatment, both kidneys of each patient failed. While they were lucky to survive, the treatment is now taking a toll on the families.

Also read: NDTV Investigation: Search For Answers As Several Women Die After C-Section In Kota

Vikas Meena, who has been at the hospital for two months with his sister Ragini, told NDTV: "How long will this continue? We have been here for over two months, and the constant dialysis is taking a toll on the patient. The government should help all these women with kidney transplants. How long will this carry on?"

Mohan Lal Suman has been forced to sell his taxi to meet the expenses of treatment. The family spends the entire day attending to Dhanni Bai.

"My wife's condition is worsening. She needs dialysis every two to three days, and she has lost so much weight. Our financial condition is under severe strain. We cannot carry on like this," he said.

Ragini, Dhanni Bai, Aarti, Sushila and Pinki are the ones who survived in Kota Medical College Hospital, but with renal failure. Their only option now is dialysis or, if they are lucky, a kidney transplant.

They have now petitioned the government to help them with either a transplant or money to make ends meet, or else they say they are desperate and will stop taking treatment.

"What happened in Kota is different from what happened in the other hospitals," said Khimsar to NDTV. 

Also read: NDTV Investigation: No Single Cause Or Common Pattern In Bikaner's Maternal Health Crisis

"Don't equate the deaths. What we have found is that our SOPs need to be made more stringent. The AIIMS team has pointed out that medicines and IV fluids need to be stored at a certain temperature. We are working on improving SOPs. Most cases where the deaths happened were referral cases, and many of the women had co-morbid conditions. Rajasthan's MMR rate is better than the national figure for maternal mortality at 87 per lakh live births," he added.

The AIIMS team's observations do not establish the cause of the deaths, but they have prompted the government to tighten hospital protocols, particularly the storage of medicines and IV fluids.

All ASHA workers, who are critical to frontline healthcare in rural Rajasthan, have now been asked to be part of this urgent screening drive.

But ironically, in the past week, 50,000 ASHA Sahyoginis across the state had been agitating for higher wages, missing from their health centres and sitting instead on protest at district headquarters.

"Our job was to screen pregnant women and monitor their health, but what do we get for it? Just Rs 4,900. We do all the groundwork. We are the ones who prepare the baseline reports for infant and maternal health, but the government is not taking note of our demands," said Sunita, an ASHA worker.

But in the light of the worsening maternal health crisis, the government has now persuaded the ASHA workers to go back to the field and screen pregnant women.