Makeshift facilities can be tolerated, but not when they involve healthcare. The Primary Health Care Centre (PHC) at Kaduvetti in Thiruverkadu municipality, is replete with such facilities.
A wooden stretcher is converted into a seating arrangement for outpatients.
The pregnancy ward is separated from the general ward by only a thin and old bedsheet. A portion of this space has been converted into a distribution area where patients can receive free medicine.
Two doctors are working in a dingy room, with just a small wooden desk separating their respective spaces. And, this is said to be the main general ward of the centre. There isn’t a dedicated waiting area. Patients wait to be called by the duty doctor, standing in whatever space they can find.
This is the infrastructure available at the 50-year-old-PHC that caters to the medical needs of more than 4,000 residents of Kaduvetti, which comes under Ward 16 of Thiruverkadu municipality limits in Tiruvallur district.
“Even for minor illnesses such as fever, the PHC finds it difficult to provide free medicines as the health centre lacks proper storage facilities. Affordable healthcare is always a distant dream for us,” says 67-year-old S. Periyakaruppan, a resident of Thiruverkadu.
Half a century ago, in 1967, this PHC was inaugurated as a child care centre by then Chief Minister K. Bhakthavatsalam. Later, the facility was converted into a village sub-health centre.
Years later, the sub-health centre, which was run by a nurse as per norms, in Kaduvetti, was upgraded into a PHC with a duty doctor and a few staff.
Despite being upgraded, the new building of the PHC, along with other infrastructure facilities have not been renovated. The new building, adjacent to the existing PHC, has been under construction for years, albeit at a snail’s pace.
Every day, on an average, at least 200 patients visit the centre.
Incidentally, a small branch library was opened recently at a cost of ₹7 lakh with funds from Avadi MLA K. Pandiarajan’s Local Area Development Fund. This work was completed in a few months by the Thiruverkadu municipality. This work on the PHC’s new building is however dragging on.
In fact, many patients wait on the veranda of the new library due to lack of adequate seating arrangement at the PHC.
“We have been requesting the Tiruvallur district administration to complete the new building work soon, at least before the onset of northeast monsoon so that patients are not treated under a leaky roof at the PHC,” said the staff at the Centre.