Una, March 25- Deputy Commissioner Una Jatin Lal held a review meeting of the Safe Motherhood Assurance Program (Suman) being run by the Health and Family Welfare Department in his chamber on Tuesday. He said that the purpose of the meeting is to review the progress towards zeroing maternal and newborn mortality rate and to improve the quality of health services.
During this, the Deputy Commissioner laid special emphasis on ensuring the availability of maternal and newborn health services. He directed to provide free and quality health services to all pregnant women and newborns and to ensure wide access to health services so that they can get safe and respectful maternity services.

Progress of health services in the district under the program
Chief Medical Officer Una Dr. Sanjeev Verma said that 59 health sub-centers, 23 primary health centers, 9 community health centers and 5 civil hospitals have been notified for the effective implementation of the Suman program in the district. He informed that so far antenatal care (ANC) examination of 7,317 pregnant women has been completed in the district. The target of 4 ANC checkups in the district has been completed by 86.1 percent. The target of identifying high risk pregnancy has been achieved by 7.1 percent. The delivery rate among registered pregnant women has reached 96.4 percent, which is a significant achievement towards promoting institutional delivery.

Reduction in maternal mortality rate
Dr Sanjeev Verma said that maternal mortality rate has been reduced in the district as compared to last year, which shows improvement in safe motherhood services. He said that continuous efforts are being made by the Health Department to reduce maternal and infant mortality rate to zero.

Expansion of health services at village level
The CMO said that Village Health, Nutrition and Sanitation Committees (VHSNC) and Village Health and Nutrition Day (VHND) are being effectively implemented to increase the availability of health services at the rural level. He said that 76.2 percent VHSNC and VHND are being organized successfully in the district, which has improved the availability of health services in rural areas. Dr Sanjeev Verma said that the department is constantly striving to make the reach of VHSNC and VHND 100% at the rural level so that health services can be made more effective and accessible at the village level.
On this occasion, District Program Officer ICDS Narinder Kumar, Pediatrician Dr Ashna Sharma, BMO Haroli Dr Pushpendra Rana, BMO Basdehra Dr Rampal, BMO Amb Rajiv Garg, BMO Gagret Pankaj Parashar, District Program Officer Maternal Health Dr Ankit Chaudhary and Advisor Dr Priya Sharma were present.