Staff crunch hits services at Primary Health Centre

MUSSOORIE: The Primary Health Centre, being run by an NGO – Samarpan — under the state Health and Social Welfare Department, near Mussoorie Girls’ Inter College, is functioning without adequate staff and the required infrastructure, depriving slum dwellers of health benefits for whom the project was initiated in the first place.

Tribune News Service

Mussoorie, November 30

The Primary Health Centre, being run by an NGO – Samarpan — under the state Health and Social Welfare Department, near Mussoorie Girls’ Inter College, is functioning without adequate staff and the required infrastructure, depriving slum dwellers of health benefits for whom the project was initiated in the first place.

The primary health centre was opened with the assistance of the NGO to provide necessary vaccines and medical aid to poor people, mostly from nearby slum dwellings. But it has been reduced to a mere showpiece due to lack of adequate medical staff.

Three female health workers, three Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM) staff and one technical female employee were present during a survey conducted by The Tribune. But according to the laid-down guidelines by the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), the Primary Health Centre should have one physician, one pharmacist, five ANMs and three GNMs. It is also mandatory to have five rooms and one bathroom in the centre, but such facilities were found missing here.

Residents of the area, who paid a visit to the primary health centre for treatment, were shocked to see poor arrangements and said it was better to close down the centre if it could not cater to small needs of ailing people from poor strata.

Another resident said it was sheer misuse of the taxpayer’s money and an investigation should be conducted in this regard and the NGO assigned the task should be reprimanded.

Dr VK Nautiyal, Chief Medical Superintendent (CMS), St Mary’s Government Hospital, said he had no knowledge of any such primary health centre being run in the town. “Normally, a medical centre is set up under the supervision of the CMS,” said Dr VK Nauityal. He said the matter would be reported to the higher authorities so that necessary action was initiated against the NGO running the centre.