Ludhiana: Health centres short of midwives; overburdened, say employees

According to an assement by the local health officials in 2017-2018, after the National Health Mission (NHM) in 2014 prescribed that there must be a ANM against every 10,000 people, it was found that the city has roughly a population of 18-20 lakh and as such would require 196 ANMs

The local health department is facing a severe shortage of Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANMs), forcing those on duty to cater to twice or thrice the number of people an ANM is supposed to cater as per the rules, say staff members.

The local health department had written to the higher-ups in 2018 to sanction more posts to ensure the required ANM strength. (HT file)

According to an assement by the local health officials in 2017-2018, after the National Health Mission (NHM) in 2014 prescribed that there must be a ANM against every 10,000 people, it was found that the city has roughly a population of 18-20 lakh and as such would require 196 ANMs. However, at the moment, there are only around 60 ANMs in the various urban primary health centres (UPHCs) in the district.

The Giaspura UPHC caters to around one lakh people but no ANM is available there at present. The situation is similar at the Salem Tabri UCHC that caters to 45,000 people. The UPHCs in Dhandari (catering to 60,000 people) and Model Town (having a population of 31,000) have just one ANM each. The data shows that the ANM staff are short by 70%.

A health official, seeking anonymity, said it was important to have enough ANMs in the peripheral urban areas that were populated mostly by labour class migratory population as they required to be educated in how to ensure prenatal health, identify symptoms of complications and antenatal care.

While urban areas clocked fewer maternal mortality cases last year, the numbers in the preceding year were more. If the data from last year was taken out, the maternal mortality cases in urban areas appear to be increasing. In 2021-22, there were 18 maternal deaths in urban areas, which rose to 28 by 2023-24. Last year, the urban areas recorded only 20 deaths.

The local health department had written to the higher-ups in 2018 to sanction more posts to ensure the required ANM strength. On different occasions, ANMs were sent to the district but at present most of the posts remain vacant.

The health official further said that multiple letters were written to higher officials regarding the ANM shortage, but to no avail.

When contacted, Ludhiana civil surgeon Dr Ramandeep Kaur said, “I took up this issue at the civil surgeons’ conference today. I was told that a few ANMs have been recruited. A rationalising process will be taken up and they will be deployed as per the demand.”