Telangana: Pregnant women in Agencies losing faith in Public Health Centres

KHAMMAM: Lack of proper Mother and Child care services is taking a toll on the pregnant women in the Agency areas of the district. The services need to improved and made available round-the-clock. 
While Khammam has 22 PHCs, the number stands at 29 in Bhadradri Kothagudem district. There are also area hospitals in Bhadrachalam, Kothagudem and Khammam apart from the big hospitals in Palavoncha and Sattupalli towns. However, due to non availability of 24-hour maternal and child care services, most of the tribal and rural women are forced to approach the private hospitals and local RMPs in the district for deliveries. Turning their helplessness into a business module, the private hospitals and RMPs are reportedly performing cesarean operations on the pregnant women even if there is chance of normal deliveries. They charge huge amounts for the C-section.

Even PHCs and other big hospitals are facing severe shortage of specialists.  This has reportedly led to some cases getting botched up due to operations being performed by non-specialists.  It may be mentioned here that around 10 to 20 pregnant women visit PHCs per month for delivery.

‘Improvement needed’
A retired medical department official, on condition of anonymity, said that the medical services in the Agency areas need a lot of improvement. While pregnant women are visiting the government hospitals keeping the KCR kits in mind, they are forced to go to the private hospitals owing to the poor facilities and services available at some of the PHCs in the Agency as well as government hospitals in urban areas. 

Highlighting the problems faced by the villagers, K Narasayya from Mardubaka village said that the mother and child care services must be made available round-the-clock and specialists should be appointed at the headquarters. S Vasanthamma, a resident of Dummagudem said, “We are losing faith on the PHCs. There are no staff and doctors in night hours and so we go to the private hospitals.” Meanwhile, a health official said that health care services need to be improved to curb child mortality rate.