DISCUSSION
The analysis of secondary data obtained from HMIS of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare website for RCH programme India shows that the lock down period & initial early phase of SARS-CoV-2 pandemic have a negative impact over the delivery of RCH health services as well as the indicators are also affected negatively.
Besides the pandemic India is also having lack of resources, manpower poor infrastructure as well as positive deviance at community level. These are the barriers in fact beside the epidemic. It seems that there is lack of proper plan to deal with such pandemic situation. Providing RCH (reproductive and child health) service is always a big concern for populous nations particularly India with high levels of fertility. During the pandemic era it’s more challenging to deliver such essential services due to fear factors at community as well as personal level of healthcare staff. Decreasing rate of immunisation can lead to emergence of diseases which is being controlled by such programmes. At the same time poor ANC services can put maternal as well as foetus life in danger. The decrease in family planning services might add more to ongoing population explosion putting more stress on available resources.
Although the Nation have imposed various measures but it seems to be ineffective to get positive results on RCH programme. The need is to develop a separate cadre for RCH services in order to reap the benefits of demographic dividend in coming years. The Government of India should develop a strong strategy to protect maternal and child health in conditions of distress such as covid-19 pandemic. For this the barriers and promoters of RCH programme needs to be dealt in proper way to achieve the maximum output.
CONCLUSION: India has done a lot to deal with covid-19 pandemic but it seems that insufficient attention have been paid to very essential services such as RCH to give the desired results. The barriers of healthcare system and delivery of services should be rectified added with a proper dynamic plan to carry on usual health delivery services even in pandemics & other situations of distress. The country needs to develop an exclusive plan to tackle such situations to ensure delivery of very essential services such as RCH during pandemics or any other natural calamities.