Chennai to get 12 more corporation diagnostic centres soon

CHENNAI: Essential diagnostic tools such as X-rays, scans and blood investigations, besides dialysis will soon be available free of cost at every zone of Greater Chennai Corporation. The civic body is planning to open 12 special diagnostic centres and will begin working towards it after the election model code of conduct ends. Two such facilities already exist in the city.
Chennai, with a population of more than 80 lakh, has just 550 dialysis machines in 93 centres, including A-listed hospitals. “We are planning to open about 12 special diagnostic centres which will provide free-of-cost premium dialysis. These centres will also provide blood & pathological investigations, ultrasound, ECG, X-ray facilities for free,” said corporation commissioner G Prakash. He said the city’s dialysis capacity right now is 30,000 dialysis a month. To increase it to at least 50,000, the civic body aims to set up a minimum of 15 machines in each zone’s urban commercial health centre. While the civic body will provide infrastructure and basic amenities for the diagnostic centres, part of the manpower and maintenance will be outsourced to NGOs.
Right now, there is a diagnostic centre near Valluvar Kottam with 13 dialysis machines and one at Lakshmi Puram in Retteri with 10 dialysis machines apart from other diagnostic machines. A third centre set up at Perungudi is ready and will be inaugurated after the model code ends.
The civic body has tied up with Tamil Nadu Kidney Research Foundation (Tanker), an NGO, for the dialysis services. Latha Kumarasamy, managing trustee of the NGO, said they carry out around 600 dialysis every month at the Valluvar Kottam facility, adding that 14,400 patients report chronic kidney disease every year in Tamil Nadu according to a study conducted by them.
“For an underprivileged patient, it is difficult to afford dialysis as the procedure costs between Rs 1,500-5,000 per sitting in a private centre. We offer it for free as the corporation and the state government reimburse 70% of the cost. We get help from other non-profit organisations, individual contributions and corporates for the remaining cost,” she said. The diagnostic centres are open to all and not just the underprivileged patients and it is free for all.
Saying that the cost of all diagnostic services are expensive, deputy commissioner for health, Madhusudhan Reddy, said the initiative is aimed at making basic healthcare accessible to all. “We have the infrastructure with us. The fund estimation for the project will be completed in a month’s time and we will roll out the project soon after the model code of conduct ends,” he said.