Mohali: Kumbhra sub-centre not in pink of health

Gaurav Kanthwal

Mohali, July 29

The health and wellness centre at Kumbhra village here is unique in itself as patients and pregnant women have to go up a dozen stairs for consultation. Around 8 to 10 pregnant women visit this facility daily, laborously climbing up the narrow stairs in shabby, unhygienic conditions. Broken toilet seats and waste furniture greet them at the cave-like entrance here.

The sub-centre is housed in village panchayat dharamshala for a decade now. Decades-old scrap is dumped in the hall on the ground floor of the building, the first floor has three-room dispensary with a makeshift toilet and the top floor has a dharamshala.

The climb-up is an ardous task for pregnant women who come along with their kids. Not only this, the narrow stairs with steep gradient has uneven steps which pose the risk of tripping while climbing up or down.

In need of instant medical treatment and emergency, locals consider it no less than a dispensary. Expectant mothers visit here for consultation and medical advice. Nearly 100 expectant and new mothers are registered here.

A community health officer and ANMs (auxiliary nursing midwife) are posted here. In times of cholera outbreak in the village, it acts as a makeshift medical camp with two-three lady doctors and nurses.

Parul, Rekha, and Seema, who had come for a check-up, said it was very tiresome and risky going up and down as visitors jostle for space in the narrow staircase. “Pregnant women along with their children face great difficulty handling their kids here,” said a female visitor. “The surroundings are dirty and unhygienic. This is not how a dispensary looks like. The medical staff’s silence on the state of affairs says all,” said another visitor.

Imagine the number of visitors here as a medical camp was set up to attend to patients with cholera-like symptoms. From the look of the sub-centre, it is clear that it once started as a makeshift arrangement, but with time and official apathy, it became a permanent fixture.

Mohali Civil Surgeon Dr Davinder Kumar said, “It is not a dispensary in strict terms, but a community wellness centre.”

“Former Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu hails from Mohali only. Municipal Corporation Mayor Amarjit Singh Sidhu hailed from here. The present Health Minister Balbir Singh goes to the Civil Hospital and Aam Aadmi Clinics but never visits dispensaries and sub-centres,” said Balwinder Kumbhra, a social activist from the village.