Home for safe motherhood established in Meghalaya to reduce mother mortality

Shillong 12 August : Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K.Sangma on Friday inaugurated a safe motherhood transportation home in West Garo Hills district under the Chief Ministers Safe Motherhood Scheme (CM-SMS) to reduce the rate of maternal mortality in an expedited way.

We are working to reduce it to less than that of the national average within the next few months," he said.To inaugurate the safe motherhood transition home in Asanang under the Rongram block in West Garo Hills district the Chief Minister said the government of the state has given priority to the care of expecting mothers via the MOTHER program as well as the safe motherhood program with the aim of increasing institutional births and decreasing the number of maternal deaths to the minimum.

The most important elements of CM-SMS include creating homes for mothers at risk of becoming homeless by providing them with food and a space for their children and arranging transportation for local entrepreneurs to pickup and drop-off and encouraging husbands and members of the family to stay with them; and a wage payment of up to $1,000 per person and an award for the most successful village under each PHC every year.The Chief Minister announced that 80 primary health centres (PHCs) have already finished the construction of transit homes in the state, and 84 PHCs have set up vehicle support and an amount of 36 crore rupees is earmarked for the scheme, which is tied to other programs, such as JSY as well as JSSK.sc/ar.