Health centres ready, where are the doctors?

Noida/Greater Noida: At Khandera village in Dadri, a building stands with dilapidated windows and overgrown shrubs all around. Hardly used today, the building, constructed five years ago, is a primary healthcare centre that would have catered to at least nine villages in the vicinity had it been functional.
The broken building is a stark pointer to the healthcare infrastructure in Noida’s rural areas, where several people with Covid-like symptoms have died in the past few weeks in the absence of timely testing and treatment. Khandera itself has reported at least two deaths linked to Covid. Four others have died after being ill for long.
“The health centre was to have a capacity of 50-60 beds but it has not been in use for over five years now. There is only one doctor who comes once in a while, may be a week or even a fortnight. But he hasn’t come for a long time now. He has been attached to the Dadri CHC for Covid duty,” says Rohit Kumar of Khandera.
In the absence of the nearby health centre, villagers have to depend on private hospitals in the city for treatment. The other — and easier — option is local compounders or quacks, who mostly administer steroids and antibiotics for fever and breathing distress.
But it’s not just Khandera where health infrastructure is a cause for concern. The primary health centres at Rabupura and Bilaspur, too, are lying unused for some time. The community health centre at Jewar was, however, made operational recently.
Deepak Ohri, Noida’s chief medical officer, said it was the lack of adequate staff that had rendered the health centres non-functional. Although health staff has been assigned to each centre, most of them are on Covid duty elsewhere, he added. There are five health centres in Badalpur, Bisrakh, Bhangel, Dadha (Kasna) and Jewar. There are also 33 primary health centres and 15 urban primary health centres in the district.
“The PHC in Khandera is operational and a doctor is also assigned as the in-charge there. However, he is currently deployed at the police lines because of increasing cases among police personnel. We have had to shift doctors and other staff since we have limited resources. The same staff has to take on multiple roles, especially with increased pressure during Covid. Once their Covid duties are over, all PHCs and CHCs will run as usual,” Dr Ohri said.
Villagers, however, are worried that by the time the health centres start functioning as usual, most of them would have contracted the infection. The residents of Roza Jalalpur, Sadullapur and other nearby villages wanted chief minister Yogi Adityanath to visit them during his tour of Noida on Sunday. But he chose to visit Chhaprauli in Bisrakh district, which has reportedly witnessed no Covid-related deaths so far and has reported few positive cases.
Referring to the lack of healthcare workers, Dr Ohri said while 300 doctors were required to run the health centres in the district, there were only 78 of them at the moment. He added he had sent multiple requests to the state government for increasing the number of healthcare workers, but to no avail.
According to the CMO, there are 396 health department staff in Noida at the moment. But while many of them are deployed as part of the Rapid Response Teams (RRTs), several doctors and 88 staffers are working at the integrated Covid call centre. Additionally, 25 doctors are involved in sampling and 22 have been deployed at the Noida Covid Hospital in Sector 39.
“All these staff and doctors have had to be shifted from routine duty to Covid work,” Dr Ohri said. Anganwadi as well as ASHA workers are now being deployed to handle some of the health centres and hand out medicine kits, he added..