Ranchi, Aug. 5: Village sahiyas (friends) are slowly changing the mode of child birth in rural Jharkhand.

According to the latest figures of the state health department, delivery in hospitals (institutional delivery) has increased by 10 times in the past three years after the introduction of the sahiya system in Jharkhand.

“Each primary health centre (PHC) earlier catered to around 10 pregnant women in a month for institutional delivery. But today each PHC gets about 100 pregnant women every month for delivery,” said Vijay Narayan Singh, the state reproductive child health (RCH) officer.

The sahiya system was introduced by the erstwhile Arjun Munda government in 2005 with an aim to serve as a link between the health service providers and the village community. Presently, the state has 40,000 sahiyas as against 32,000 villages.

The sahiyas play a crucial role in dissuading the rural pregnant women from home delivery — the traditional method of child delivery — and encourage them to take to institutional delivery for safe motherhood.

“They do so by frequenting homes of the pregnant women and counselling,” said Subir Kumar, the co-ordinator of NGO partners working with the state government in the health sector.

The change in trend was also indicated by the National Family Health Survey-3 conducted in 2006-07. It has noted more than five per cent growth in institutional delivery in rural Jharkhand as against the previous 14 per cent.

The state has registered 95,000 pregnant rural women going for institutional delivery up to June this year.

The 40,000 sahiyas, however, are yet to be completely trained. According to the set norm, each sahiya should get training on healthcare for 21 days on seven phases (modules). But so far they have received training only up to three phases — a total of nine days.

Kumar said the department would soon be arranging further training modules for the sahiyas.

In order to further increase the institutional deliveries in the state, the health department has tied up with some private hospitals and nursing homes. While the number of such hospitals and nursing homes is 18 in Bokaro district, it is seven in Deoghar, 45 in Dhanbad and 10 in East Singhbhum. Ranchi district has 11 of them.

“We are creating more private partners, wherein the institutional delivery of the pregnant women can be done and the charges can be met through the Mukhyamantri Janani Suraksha Yojana fund,” Kumar said.

The government may celebrate the increase of figures of institutional deliveries, but a majority of the pregnant women in the villages are still beyond the reach of hospitals.

According to a survey conducted by Christian Children Fund (CCF) in 2008, 60 per cent of the deliveries in Jharkhand still take place at homes.