‘No childbirth at home’ policy delivers good results at Mahashila

By Ganesh Paudel,Parbat, Aug. 29: Mahashila Rural Municipality has adopted a policy of 'no childbirth at home'. The municipality has adopted this policy considering the health complications expecting mothers are exposed to in lack of medical assistance.

The municipality has started free ambulance service to encourage women to deliver their babies at hospitals. It has adopted the policy of no child delivery at home from the fiscal year 2022/23.

According to Hari Prasad Parajuli, Chief Administrative Officer of the municipality, this programme is launched to protect women’s safe maternity right. This programme is adopted to make sure that the poor and the disadvantaged women have easy access to hospital.

According to Parajuli, it is the duty of the municipality to secure safe maternity right of the women and this policy is adopted to avoid a situation where women fail to get medical assistance due to the lack of financial resources.

The expecting mothers facing financial crisis will feel relieved to a great extent if the municipality manages ambulance during the delivery. The ambulance can be used to take expecting mothers to Kathmandu if their situation becomes critical.

To a certain extent, it checks pregnant women’s untimely death due to complications, said Parajuli. “The free ambulance service can be used to take expecting mothers to both local and regional hospitals considering their medical condition,” he further added.

According to health coordinator of Mahashila Rural Munucipality, Nara Bahadur Baral Chhetri, Mahashila has two ambulances and they are used to carry expecting mothers to hospitals as far as possible. If the condition of the mother and baby is critical, the ambulance can be used to transport them to more sophisticated hospitals outside the municipality as well.

 The local level will reimburse the fare if the vehicle is arranged by family of the patients.

Baral said there are birthing centres in all six wards of the municipality so the situation of referring expecting mothers to other places rarely arrives. Apart from some exceptions, almost all births take place in the birthing centres of the wards.

Earlier, financial assistance for extremely needy was provided from emergency fund of the 

municipality, said Chhetri. As per the statistics of Health Unit, 84/85 children are born in Mahashila Municipality every year.

As per the meeting of the municipality executive, ambulance fares up to Rs. 3000 is provided for delivery inside the municipality. 

Likewise, Rs. 5000 is provided for Kusma and Waling, Rs. 5,500 for Baglung, Rs. 9,000 for Pokhara, Rs. 12,000 for Palpa, and Rs. 15,000 for Butwal and Chitwan respectively.