With the motto to improve labour room quality, Union Minister of State for Finance, S.P. Shukla on Monday launched LaQshya, a safe delivery mobile application for health workers who manage normal and complicated deliveries in peripheral areas.

Shukla also released the Operational Guidelines for Obstetric High Dependency Units (HDUs) and Intensive Care Units (ICUs). "There is enough evidence that supports the fact that improving the quality of care in labour rooms especially on the day of birth, is central to maternal and neonatal survival," said the Health Ministry in a statement. According to the Ministry, while the initiative will prevent the undesirable adverse outcomes associated with childbirth, the initiative will be implemented in Government Medical Colleges besides district hospitals, and high delivery load sub-district hospitals and Community Health Centres. 

"The initiative plans to conduct quality certification of labour rooms and also incentivise facilities achieving the targets outlined. The goal of this initiative is to reduce preventable maternal and new-born mortality, morbidity and stillbirths associated with the care around delivery in labour room and maternity OT and ensure respectful maternity care," said the statement.

The application has clinical instruction films on key obstetric procedures which can help the health workers translate their learnt skills into practice. "It can play a pivotal role in training, post training reinforcement, mentoring and demonstration. This application has been tailored as per the Indian context. It has also been field tested in few districts and has been found to be useful for health workers who provide maternity care," said the statement. The launch was held during an event to mark the Universal Health Coverage, 2017.