Model maternity & Child Health care ward at Jeypore hospital

A model maternity and child health (MCH) care ward of the sub-divisional hospital at Jeypore in Koraput district is expected to be operational within two months, a senior Health department official said.
The building requires an approach road and is to be equipped with fire safety measures.
"Also, some interior works of the building is yet to be done. The public works department which is constructing the building has been urged to hand it over soon and we expect to make it operational within two months," said Chief District Medical Officer of Koraput, Lalit Kumar Rath.
To check the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) and Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in the tribal-dominated district by promoting institutional deliveries, construction of the building was started in May 2015 at a cost of over Rs 8 crore funded by National Health Mission (NHM), officials said.

Though the construction was scheduled to get over in 12 months, till date it remains incomplete. However, the under-construction building was inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik during his visit to Jeypore in December 2016.
"This ward is going to be very much helpful to the pregnant women and new borns in this tribal district but its unfortunate that the building is yet to be completed. This has happened due to apathy of the officials concerned," said Jeypore MLA, Tara Prasad Bahinipati.

"I have approached the health department to make it operational at the earliest," he added.
The five-storey ward is spread over 7,000 sq ft of land and it will be equipped with all sophisticated equipment to take care of the mother as well as the new born child. All post-delivery and critical cases could be treated at the new ward. Officials said though most of work of the ward is over, some minor alteration is required to make it operational.

The IMR is over 40 per 1000 live births, while the MMR is 175 per one lakh live birth in the district, mainly due to non-institutional deliveries, said officials.