ICH second in SQCI rankings in Tamil Nadu

Chennai: The neonatal care unit of Institute for Child Health (ICH), Egmore was ranked second among Sick Newborn Care Units (SNCU) of all state government hospitals for an overall performance last year as per the rankings based on SNCU Quality of Care Index (SQCI). The hospital recorded a survival rate of 82 per cent in the treatment and management of newborns and scored 63 percent as per the SQCI ranking by the National Health Mission.

The SQCI rankings were given to analyse and improve the quality of neonatal care after analysing the reports on a number of admissions, mortality of low birth babies, mortality and management of low birth babies, optimal bed utilisation at the hospital, rational use of antibiotics and inborn birth asphyxia or neonatal asphyxia.

The state witnessed 1.10 lakh total newborn admissions in the 64 SNCU units across the state, while ICH recorded around 7,000 admissions in 2017.

State Neonatal Intensive Care Unit coordinator Dr S. Srinivasan said that the infant mortality rate in Tamil Nadu has been reduced to 17 in 2016 from 24 per 1,000 live births in 2010.

“The death rate out of total admissions has reduced to 6.2 percent in 2017 from 8.6 percent in 2016. We aim to reduce it further and provide better neonatal care and newborn care management,” he said.

The neonatal care unit of the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) was ranked first in the state as per SQCI ranking with 85 percent survival rate and a score of 67 percent.

ICH gets newborns from various private hospitals after late referrals and other complex cases of newborn cardiac problems and rare diseases from neighbouring districts at ICH. Therefore, the number of admissions is comparatively larger than other districts,” said Dr Srinivasan.