ISSN: 2642-6250
Authors: Rajesh Kumar Aggarwal* and Aswini Kumar Nanda
From 25 March 2020, there was a complete lockdown in Punjab till 31 May 2020 in four different phases affecting almost all types of services except delivery of essential services. Further, lockdown restrictions continued for night movement in the State in various phases. Out-patient (OPD) services were closed and entry to medical institutions was restricted to emergency services. Since institutional deliveries constitute an important ingredient of maternal and child health care facilities, it is important to study and examine the impact on institutional births in Punjab in the context of lockdown. The main objectives of the research paper are to find out the patterns of actual institutional deliveries in the selected districts of Punjab; to study the variations in three-distinct phases such as pre-lockdown (before March 2020), lockdown (March-July 2020) and the post-lockdown (after July 2020). Further, all deliveries have been classified in different categories-normal, caesarean, public, private, core and periphery, etc. Among various things, paper finds there was an edge of government sector in both the selected districts during pre-lockdown period which started intermingling during the lockdown period and completely reversed in favour of private sector during the post- lockdown period.
Keywords: Institutional Deliveries; Place of Delivery; Normal Deliveries; Caesarean Deliveries; Public Sector; Private Sector; Peripheral Health Facilities; Lockdown
