Medical facilities in Secunderabad Cantonment still not up to mark

SECUNDERABAD: While efforts to battle Covid-19 — through tests and the vaccination drive — have seen Secunderabad Cantonment Board (SCB) officials toil endlessly, the same cannot be about the board’s efforts to improve other areas of healthcare. The board even released notifications for recruitment of permanent doctors in the wake of the pandemic.
Consider this: While the Cantonment General Hospital at Bolarum has gynaecologists, the hospital does not have a dedicated maternity ward or even a labour room. As a result, women from the Cantonment area who are expecting have to either go to corporate hospitals or to Gandhi or Osmania General hospitals.

“As specialist doctors are unavailable at the Cantonment General Hospital, many patients are referred to corporate hospitals,” admitted one SCB official.
Similarly, the near 1.1 lakh population in Rasoolpura — one of the largest slums in the country — relies on the services of a Basti Dawakhana.
The Cantonment does have dispensaries — in Picket, Trimulgherry and Bowenpally — but these facilities were built during the British era and are now lacking in both infrastructure and manpower. The dispensaries barely have enough seating facilities with several patients seen standing in queues outside doctors’ chambers.
Meanwhile, urban health centres at Bowenpally, Picket, Bolarum, Rasoolpura, and Balamrai cater to an average of 70 to 80 patients daily.
While the dispensaries are managed by SCB, the medical staff there has been deputed by the Telangana medical and health department. “The Cantonment Board has enough vacant lands so why can’t they enhance medical services by developing infrastructure and opening more dispensaries,” questioned V Ramesh Kumar, a retired medical department official and resident of Bowenpally.
Speaking on the issue, medical superintendent at the Cantonment General Hospital, Dr Ramakrishna, told TOI, “We have three ambulances, including the 108-Ambulance, which is enough to cater to needs within the Cantonment. OPD and maternity services too will begin soon while recruitment of permanent doctors and medical staff is in process. In a month, the hospitals will work at the level of a corporate hospital.”