For the first time in India, the health department of government of Telangana is planning to embark on a unique programme of registering new born babies with genetic disorders or with defective body parts and provide healthcare support for early rectification of the same before it is too late.
According to healthcare experts, annually there are more than one lakh new born babies born with genetical disorders of defects in their body parts. But till now, neither the central government nor any state governments have realized this problem. However, the Telangana state government, having faced many such cases, is spending crores of rupees under Aarogyasree free health insurance scheme and extending the best of the healthcare facilities to cure the same.
To make this more inclusive and to bring in a systematic and robust system to identify newborns with genetic and bodily disorders, it has now decided to launch a birth defects registration programme for the first time in the country. Disclosing this plan, Dr. Laxma Reddy, Minister for Medical Health and Family welfare, government of Telangana said, “Earlier we did not have a system to identify newborns with defects, however, now we are planning to launch a unique programme called Birth Defects registration programme, wherein all the newborns having defects like hole in hart, kidney ailments, problem of the digestive tract and hearing-impairment can be identified and registered at the time of their birth. This will help in early treatment and the defects can be rectified by attending the problem right at the beginning state.”
Healthcare experts say that defects in newborns are mainly because of genetical problems. And if these defects are identified early more than 90 per cent of them can be cured before they reach their maturity. For example, hearing impairment can be detected by clapping hands behind the baby’s back and gauging the baby’s response, through audiometry tests, auditory brain stem response test and so on. However, now-a-days the tests are not being conducted till the child is two or three years old, which was too late by that time. There is an invisible link between speech and hearing and it enables to acquire language skills.
Particularly, majority of genetic defects are referred to hearing impairment. As lakhs of children in the country are born with hearing problems and its inability to recognize these defects in the early stages is rendering them deaf and dumb for the rest of their life. Therefore the birth defects registration programme proposed to be launched soon would be very useful as it will enable the government and the hospitals to get ready with remedial measures.
Telengana health, embark, registration, babies born with genetical disorders
