Cuttack, Dec. 21: The National Human Rights Commission, New Delhi, has registered a complaint seeking an 'intense inquiry' on the 'deplorable condition' of critical child health care facility in the state.

Most of the neonatal units in the district headquarters hospitals and even in the three state-run medical college and hospitals are 'not well equipped' both in infrastructure and manpower and 'functioning without ventilators and life support facilities', the complainant has alleged.

Cuttack-based advocate Pravat Ranjan Dash, who had filed the complaint, cited the case of the Jajpur hospital, where two-day-old newborn babies were kept in the general ward, and the Bhadrak hospital, where babies struggling to survive were kept in ICU without a ventilator and proper facilities.

The commission has informed Dash that the complaint on inadequacies in critical child health care facility in the state has been registered, and the registration number of the complaint has been forwarded to him for further references and communication on the matter in the near future.

'According to the communication received, the commission will take up the matter on January 10,' Dash told The Telegraph.

The state of critical child health care facility assumes significance as the Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) continues to be high in Odisha.

The IMR is the number of deaths of children less than one year of age per 1,000 live births. It is seen that about 60 per cent of the infant deaths occur during the neonatal period or the first four weeks of life.

According to latest reports, 53 infants die over every thousand live births in the state - which is higher than the national average of 42 per 1,000 live births and many other states in the country.

It has been observed that 60 per cent of the infant deaths occur during the neonatal period or the first four weeks of life. Most of these deaths are due to pre-maturity, low birth weight, respiratory infections, diarrhoea and malnutrition.

In a letter to Unicef enclosed with his plea to the commission, Dash has alleged that the three state-run medical college and hospitals - MKCG (Berhampur), VSS (Burla) and SCB (Cuttack) - lack trained doctors, staff members and updated neonatal care units to take care of newborn critical babies.

'It is pathetic to see that the SCB Medical College and Hospital, a premier health care institution of the state, has a neonatal baby care unit without ventilator and life support facilities,' Dash said.