85% PHCs in Meghalaya have Transit Homes for pregnant women

Eighty five cent of the primary health centres (PHCs) in matrilineal Meghalaya have Transit Homes for expecting mothers, Chief Minister Conrad Sangma said after inaugurating yet another such facility under the CM’s Safe Motherhood Scheme at the community health centre (CHC) at Mawryngkneng Village on Wednesday.
“This is our continuing effort to increase institutional deliveries and reduce Maternal Mortality Rate in Meghalaya. Apart from the provision of accommodation facility for high-risk expecting mothers from remote villages, the Transit Home will provide them food and space for their kids,” he said.
“Women were facing a lot of maternity related problems like death during childbirth, multiple pregnancies, high risk pregnancies, and anemia and there were many reasons attributed to these problems and the health and pregnancy of women is also connected to their economic activities,” the Chief Minister said.
He further informed that the MOTHER programme (Meghalaya’s Outcome and Transformation in Health, Education and Rural Sector) was conceptualized to take care of the health, education and rural empowerment of women.
The Chief Minister said that the Transit Home for High-Risk Pregnant Women is for giving shelter and care to pregnant women who live in far flung areas.
“These transit homes give shelter, food and medical care so that they can have safe institutional deliveries and today we have 180 transit homes across the State giving service and care to the high risk mothers and those who live in far flung areas,” he added.
Stating that Self Help Group (SHG) movement has empowered women in rural areas, Sangma said the government is now looking to transform these into cooperative societies so that more help and financial support can be given.
“The SHGs are very important to society because these also create a mechanism through which the government can reach every single household because of the large network and help people participate in various health, education and environmental programmes,” he said.
To support the SHG movement in the state through the National Rural Livelihood Mission, the Chief Minister sanctioned Rs 20 crore as Community Investment Fund (CIF) to be transferred to 896 village organizations across all the 12 districts, which will benefit 4676 SHGs impacting 46,700 households.