High ‘five’ for govt hospitals in Telangana

Government maternity hospitals remain first choice for pregnant women compared to private hospitals

Hyderabad: For the fifth consecutive year, government maternity hospitals have remained the first choice for pregnant women in Telangana, when compared to private hospitals.
Despite the Covid pandemic, which has remained active for the past 18 months, State-run maternity hospitals have consistently outperformed private hospitals, courtesy the KCR Kits scheme and financial incentives being offered for pregnant women.

At present, every year, government maternity hospitals in Telangana are handling more than 50 percent of the total child deliveries. Earlier, private healthcare facilities including small and medium nursing homes, clinics and super-speciality hospitals used to handle 60 to 70 percent of pregnancies and deliveries.

However, since the launch of the KCR Kits scheme in June 2017, the inpatient admission of pregnant women in government hospitals in Telangana started to rise. Even during the pandemic, there has been no drop in the number of child deliveries in State-run maternity hospitals.

During the first wave of the pandemic, there were quite a few instances of Covid infections in maternity hospitals, especially among healthcare workers. “After the initial difficulties in the first wave, we gradually established Covid safety protocols and trained the caregivers. There were issues with non-clinical workers and support staff, who needed special attention and counselling on Covid-19 precautions. We have been functioning near normal for the last one year,” Petlaburj Maternity Hospital Superintendent Dr Naga Mani said.

Infrastructure development at government maternity hospitals also has been a big draw for the women. To provide special care to Covid positive pregnant women, the State government established exclusive Covid wards and ICU care facilities at Gandhi Hospital and later at Niloufer Hospital.

Specialised ICUs were established at tertiary hospitals including the maternity hospitals in Sultan Bazaar and Petlaburj and Niloufer Hospital for providing special care to critical infants. To save lives of critical pre-term infants, obstetric ICUs are equipped with three ventilators, ultrasound machines, ECHO facilities, defibrillators, three operation tables and other medical equipment.

The ICUs were developed based on the Labour Delivery Rooms (LDR) concept, in which services related to labour and birth including the initial hours of recovery for mothers are provided. Six additional gynaecology units at Sultan Bazaar Maternity Hospital, four units at Petlaburj and two units at Niloufer Hospital were also added.