-The Times of India   Bihar is facing an acute shortage of doctors. Against a requirement of 15,000 doctors under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM), only 4,500 doctors are in position. The problem has been compounded as against the retirement, deaths and migration to other places of 4,500 doctors of Bihar Health Services in the last 20 years, less than 1,000 doctors have been recruited during this period. The state government...

The rates of maternal and infant mortality have improved only marginally, according to the latest Sample Registration System. THE country's largest demographic sample survey, covering 1.4 million households and a population of 7.01 million, during the period 2007-09, says that there was only a mild improvement in the infant mortality rate (IMR) and the maternal mortality ratio (MMR). The findings of the latest Sample Registration System (SRS), an exercise which...

India is all set to produce over 4,400 more doctors every year. The Medical Council of India (MCI) has increased the number of seats for undergraduate medical education by 4,452 from this academic session (2011-12). Around 2,650 seats have been increased due to the opening of new colleges. And, the rest of seats (1,802) came about after the strength of the existing colleges was increased. India has around 335 medical colleges - 185...

When Sujatha’s husband learned that she had conceived just five months after they got married, he became agitated over what he called her "ill-timed pregnancy". To worsen her husband’s anxiety, a test to determine the sex of the foetus showed she was carrying a girl. Sujatha, a public school teacher, and her husband, a civil engineer – who asked that their full names be withheld – are from well-off and educated...

Policies aiming to combat malnutrition are ignoring an entire generation of women whose overall health has a direct bearing on children’s growth, say advocacy groups and researchers Cradling a frail son on her hip and with a plastic bag stuffed with clothes in one hand, Tara Jadam walked into the rehabilitation centre inside the district hospital here to spend the next two weeks. On a hot afternoon, she has walked several miles...