Health workers’ shortage leaves kids in danger

NEW DELHI: The country has the highest number of children under five dying every year, thanks to the shortage of over 2.6 million health workers that the country has, according to a study released here today.

The shortfall means that millions of children below the age of five are at greater risk of dying every year from easily preventable diseases such as pneumonia and diarrhoea simply because they do not have access to a trained health workers, says the report by International NGO Save the Children.

According to the report, India falls below the World Health Organisation health worker threshold of 2.3 health workers per 1,000 people. The shortfall of health workers at present is around 2.6 million, which includes doctors at primary health centres, nurses, midwives, anganwadi workers and male multipurpose workers.

“We know that the presence of a health worker could mean the difference between life and death for the mother and her newborn child,’’ Thomas Chandy, CEO, Save the Children, said.

The major reasons behind this health worker crisis, according to the report, included lack of education and training, poor pay and incentives leading to brain drain  ineffective use of health workers and ineffective funding.

According to the report, over 55 per cent children under the age of two do not receive basic immunisation in the country while about 2.7 million children under the age of five receive no treatment for diarrhoea -- a major killer of children.

It says that India along with Pakistan, Nigeria, China and Congo account for more than half of the world’s 3.3 million newborn deaths.