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Saving mothers and newborns through an innovative partnership with private sector obstetricians: Chiranjeevi scheme of Gujarat, India
Author(s) -
Mavalankar Dileep,
Singh Amarjit,
Patel Sureshchandra R.,
Desai Ajesh,
Singh Prabal V.
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
international journal of gynecology and obstetrics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.895
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1879-3479
pISSN - 0020-7292
DOI - 10.1016/j.ijgo.2009.09.008
Subject(s) - medicine , general partnership , private sector , government (linguistics) , attendance , millennium development goals , public sector , developing country , descriptive statistics , public–private partnership , rural area , economic growth , socioeconomics , environmental health , business , economics , linguistics , philosophy , statistics , economy , mathematics , finance , pathology
Objective To document an innovative public–private partnership between the government of Gujarat, India and private obstetricians in rural areas that provides delivery care to the poor. Methods This is a descriptive analysis of the scheme and analysis of secondary data. We estimate the lives of mothers and newborns potentially saved because of the scheme. Results More than 800 obstetricians have joined the scheme and more than 269 000 poor women have delivered in private facilities in 2 years. We estimate that the percentage of institutional deliveries among poor women increased from 27% to 48% between April 2007 and September 2008. In addition, there are fewer reported maternal and newborn deaths among the beneficiaries compared with the number of deaths expected in the absence of the scheme. Conclusions This innovative program shows that, at least in some areas of India, it is possible to develop a large scale partnership with the private sector to provide skilled birth attendance and emergency obstetric care to poor women at a relatively low cost. This is one way of addressing the human resource deficit in the public sector in rural areas of low‐income countries to achieve Millennium Development Goals 4 and 5. We also conclude that the skilled care thus provided can reduce maternal and neonatal mortality among the poor.