12 urban health and wellness centres to come up in Ganjam

Berhampur: In a bid to improve healthcare services, the Ganjam district administration will soon set up 12 urban health and wellness centres in seven areas, including Berhampur.
While six such centres will be set up in Berhampur Municipal Corporation (BeMC) area, one each will be set up in Hinjili Municipality area and Aska, Bhanjanagar, Polasara, Chhatrapur and Kodala Notified Area Council (NAC) limits.
Ganjam collector Dibya Jyoti Parida has directed the officers concerned of urban bodies and health department to expedite the work to start all the centres within a month. The centres will be set up under the National Health Mission (NHM).
“Each centre will cater to a population of up to 20,000 in the urban areas. Besides providing primary health facilities, the centres will also prove wellness facilities like yoga, physiotherapy, etc,” said R Jagadish Pattnaik, additional district medical officer-cum-nodal officer of the centres. “The establishment of the centres is aimed to improve efficiency of the public healthcare system in the city,” he said.
The BeMC has already identified the locations for the establishment of the centres at Meenakshi Nagar, Ankuli, Tulasi Nagar, Matiagon, Bijipur and Ambapua. These will be attached to the urban health centres (UHC), which are now functioning in different locations of the Silk City, sources said.
The UHCs are functioning from permanent buildings at Aga Street, Ambapua, Goods Shed Road, Aska Road, Baikuntha Nagar, Khodasingi, Uttarmukhi Street and SNT Road since the last five years. Each UHC caters to around 50,000 people. The new centres will start functioning on rented premises and community buildings like kalyana mandap till new buildings are constructed, the sources said. “On an average, 100 to 150 patients visit each UHC daily,” said Lambodar Digal, city programme manager, NUHM. He said all the UHCs in the city had won the Kayakalpa award for the last three years under the best urban PHC category.
The award, under the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, was instituted by the ministry of health and family welfare in 2015 to encourage cleanliness and hygiene in health centres.