Chandigarh, August 30
In a glaring act of negligence, for almost three years the Punjab government failed to provide mandatory supplements of iron and vitamin A to children born in the state. Vitamin A deficiency can not only cause night blindness, but also increase the risks of acute respiratory disorders as well as diarrhea, the two major causes of infant mortality in India.
While the reason given by state health officials is that the state did not receive supplies of vitamin A and iron from the central government during the past two years, they have not been able to explain why in such a situation the Punjab government did not procure its own supplies.
Children between nine and 36 months of age are to be provided with a vitamin A solution every six months as part of the Indian government’s reproductive and child health (RCH) programme, which includes giving small iron tablets to children suffering from anaemia.
Interestingly, the third national family health survey found over 80 per cent of the state’s children aged three years and below are anaemic. Vitamin A supplements are now considered to be essential for children in the fast-growing age group of two to four years as common illnesses like diarrhea, acute respiratory infections and measles deplete vitamin A reserves.
The central government supplied both vitamin A solutions and iron tablets as kits to Punjab under the RCH programme. However, since December 2005 when it was integrated into the National Rural Health Mission (NHRM) the supplies became irregular and finally stopped in 2006. There were no supplies in 2007 and for the greater part of 2008. “In 2008 some supplies
arrived from the central government after April but they barely lasted a few months and it was back to square one,” said a source.
Information for Hoshiarpur and Kapurthala districts gleaned under the RTI Act by Parvinder Singh Kitna of the Human Empowerment League of Punjab, an NGO in Nawashahr, revealed there were no supplies of these supplements from 2005 to 2007. Hospitals regularly sent reports to the state headquarters stating the supplements were not available.
The fact that health officials failed to ensure constant supplies of the supplements to urban and rural state-run hospitals can only be termed as criminal neglect. And, what is worse, no one in the health department has so far been held accountable for this negligence.
“Supplies of these supplements have been restored since April 2009 as part of the NRHM. They’re now available in all government hospitals in rural areas,” said a senior health department official.
However, sources say the restored supplies of vitamin A supplements cover less than a third of government hospitals. They remain unavailable in community health and primary health centres, civil hospitals and rural dispensaries, they add.
