INDIA ON WAY TO REDUCE INFANT MORTALITY RATE

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (UN SDG 2030) mandates India to reduce its Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) from the existing 29 per 1000 live birth to 12 per 1000 live births by 2030. With increasing affluence of society and improving Quality of life index (QoLI), and as Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) starts approaching 12-15, congenital heart disease becomes the commonest contributor to the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) in that society. Provinces of Kerala (IMR, 9), Tamil Nadu (IMR, 17) and a part of the Himalayan region are already experiencing this phenomenon. Gradually and ultimately, the same will be followed by all other provinces of the country with improvement in their socio-economic status.

United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 (UN SDG 2030) mandates India to reduce its Infant Mortality Rate (IMR)

Thus, it has been realized that IMR, as mandated by the UN SDG 2030, can only be reduced by improving survival of babies with congenital heart disease. It calls for development of pediatric cardiology, pediatric cardiac intensive care, pediatric cardiac surgery, pediatric cardiac anaesthesia and pediatric cardiac radiology services specifically dedicated and committed towards children.

Accompanying two pictures are evidence of poor state of affairs as far as congenital heart disease is concerned in the North.

Realising these hard facts, Prof. V. K. Paul (member of Niti Aayog, and a Pediatrician himself) expressed the need of 5-6 centres of excellence for care of children with congenital heart disease in different parts of the country in the inaugural address of annual conference of Pediatric Cardiac Society of India.

In the North, we cannot have a better place than Chandigarh to establish such a center of excellence (within the PGI fold).

Increasing legal age of girls’ marriage to 21 year is a social intervention to reduce Infant Mortality Rate (IMR).

Creating a center of excellence for children with congenital heart disease will be an executive intervention for the same.