International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health | October 2018 | Vol 5 | Issue 10 Page 4507 International Journal of Community Medicine and Public Health Ganapa P et al. Int J Community Med Public Health. 2018 Oct;5(10):4507-4514 http://www.ijcmph.com pISSN 2394-6032 | eISSN 2394-6040 Original Research Article Study to assess the labour room standards of 24×7 PHCs in Kurnool district Praveena Ganapa 1 , Sreedevi Arepalli 2 , Visweswara Rao Guthi 3 * INTRODUCTION Major causes of maternal mortality globally are due to direct causes i.e. obstetric complications of pregnancy, labour and puerperium to interventions or incorrect treatment. 1 The major cause of maternal mortality in India according to the SRS survey are hemorrhage- 38%, sepsis-11%, hypertension- 5%, obstructed labour-5%, abortion- 8% and other conditions-34%. 2 The major causes of neonatal mortality in India are 35% Preterm birth complications, 20% due to Birth asphyxia, 16% due to pneumonia, 15% due to sepsis, 9% due to congenital malformations, 2% due to diarrhea and 3% due to other causes. 3 Most of the causes of maternal and neonatal mortality were preventable through effective primary health care. Primary health care is essential to provide maternal and child health care especially in rural areas. Staff of Primary health Centre should be trained to conduct ABSTRACT Background: Most of the causes of maternal and neonatal mortality were preventable through effective primary health care. Primary health care is essential to provide maternal and child health care especially in rural areas. The objective of this study is to assess the labour room standards of 24×7 PHCs in the Kurnool district. Methods: This study is a facility based cross sectional study carried out from November 2014-May 2015 in administrative limits of Kurnool district. Questionnaire is attempted to assess the standards of labour room of that PHC by obtaining information about following standards - Infrastructure in labour room, Infection Prevention, Drugs and supplies etc. Results: Majority (66.67%) of 24×7 PHCs had availability of <6 beds and 33.33% of 24×7 PHCs had availability of ≥6 beds. All PHCs had availability of stepping stool, ensured privacy during delivery and new born care corner. All PHCs had availability of running water facility, majority of PHCs (90.47%) had availability of antiseptics, 14/21 (66.67%) of PHCs had provision of HLD and 12/21 (57.14%) of PHCs had provision of sterilization facilities. no PHC had availability of functional ambulance and all PHCs were utilizing 108 facility for referral transport. Conclusions: Availability of infrastructure facilities, infection prevention facilities, equipment and laboratory services were adequate in most of the PHCs. No PHCs were practicing segregation of bio medical wastes and there was deficiency in availability of antiseptics. No PHCs were provided with ambulance facility which was major concern in addressing the second delay. Keywords: 24×7 PHC, Labour room, IPHS, Infrastructure Department of Community Medicine, 1 Kamineni Institute of Medical Sciences, Narketpally, Telangana; 2 Kurnool Medical College, Kurnool, Andhra Pradesh; 3 SVIMS-Sri Padmavathi Medical College for Women, Tirupati, Andhra Pradesh, India Received: 27 July 2018 Revised: 04 September 2018 Accepted: 05 September 2018 *Correspondence: Dr. Visweswara Rao Guthi, E-mail: vissumbbs@gmail.com Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2394-6040.ijcmph20184001