CHENNAI: Seeking to bridge the gap in maternal health outcomes, Uttar Pradesh has turned to Tamil Nadu's public health model, with a senior delegation undertaking a detailed study of systems that have brought down maternal deaths to among the lowest in the country.
Recent estimates place Tamil Nadu's Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) at around 35-40 per one lakh live births, while Uttar Pradesh continues to record a significantly higher MMR of about 140, underscoring the scale of disparity and the urgency for intervention.
A team from the State Transformation Commission (STC), Uttar Pradesh, led by its chief executive officer, held consultations with senior officials of the Health and Family Welfare Department at the National Health Mission (NHM) office in the city on Wednesday. Officials from NHM, the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project (TNHSP) and the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine outlined the State's healthcare infrastructure, service delivery mechanisms and monitoring frameworks.
"The UP team visited Tamil Nadu mainly to study maternal mortality. We briefed them through a detailed presentation on our projects, schemes and action plans since 2005 to reduce MMR," Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine Dr A Somasundaram told DT Next.
"We explained our MMR war room, district-level audits, established protocols, SUMAN centres and our focus on high-risk areas. They observed these during field visits," he said.
On Thursday, the delegation visited Madurai and Virudhunagar districts; the latter having recorded zero maternal deaths between April 2023 and March 2024. The team interacted with district officials, frontline health workers and beneficiaries, and visited primary health centres and government hospitals to assess implementation and patient experience.
"They will also share their feedback with us," Somasundaram added.
Officials indicated that Uttar Pradesh is exploring adoption of Tamil Nadu's district-driven, audit-based model as it seeks to accelerate reductions in maternal mortality and strengthen public health outcomes.