Operationalizing Obstetric ICUs

Problem Statement

Based on Maternal Death Review analysis for year 2014-15, nearly 90% of women reached to some health care facility before death. However, many of these facilities did not have required facility to handle life threatening complications. Present initiative documents efforts made towards improving quality of critical care in obstetrics to improve maternal health in Gujarat.

Programme Description

Objective

• To establish Obstetric Intensive Care Units (Obs ICU) in Medical College.
• To develop standardize treatment protocols in all Obstetric ICUs.
• To develop Information Technology enabled monitoring system. Structure of Obs ICU

Human Resource: 1 Intensivist, 4 Medical Officers, 12 Staff Nurses & Monitoring & Evaluation assistant under supervision of Head of Department Obstetrics of the medical college.

Equipments: Each Obstetric ICU have standard list of 26 equipments as per national guidelines.

Infrastructure: One-time infrastructure up gradation cost sanctioned for every Obs ICU.

Implementation Partners

UNICEF Gujarat has provided continuous support to Government of Gujarat in operationalizing Obstetric ICUs and documentation of Initiative. Currently, UNICEF is supporting development of monitoring of parameters from Obstetric ICUs to develop appropriate responses to reduce maternal mortality within facility as well as across the board.

Annual Performance of Obstetric ICU:

Total of 9016 pregnant women with life threatening complications were admitted in 20 Obstetric ICUs in year 2018-19.

Financial Implications

National Health mission provided initial funding for innovating with three medical colleges. Presently out of 20 Obstetric ICUs, Seven are funded by NHM while remaining 13 are from state budget.

Conclusion

Obstetric ICUs have proved game changer in improving quality of care at tertiary care institutions. In days to come constant supportive supervision and delivery of required services at of these centers will help in improving maternal health in Gujarat.

Source : We Care Coffee Table Book - Good, Replicable and Innovative Practices 2019