KOCHI: Patients are having a tough time as most of the health centres in the city are devoid of the services of doctors and other basic facilities. Most of the health centres which are of great relief to the common people are lying completely neglected. The unavailability of doctors is a major stumbling block at the health centres. Sources at a primary health centre (PHC) in the city said: “ We do not have much patients here. The doctors are not interested in their work. After their prescribed duty time, which is from 9 am to 9 pm, they are on call duty. But usually they evade it by admitting only such patients who will not require any immediate attention,” sources said. Adding to the trouble, most of these PHCs do not have basic amenities. Though the Community Health Centre at Edappally has adequate number of doctors, the shortage of other staff and facilities are giving them headache. “We do not have adequate laboratory facilities. We cannot even take an ECG test or check blood sugar level of the patients,” said the employees in of the community health care centre adding that they were suffering owing to shortage of staff. “In the absence of clerks, the pharmacist and other nursing staff have to attend to the clerical duties, which is a major headache for us,” they said. Dr Junaid Rehman, Superintendent, Government General Hospital, said the purpose of health centres are not well-defined. The shortage of doctors and staff has always been a problem. “These are centres not for treatment but for disease prevention. But without realising its proper purpose, the local bodies interfere and erect building to house inpatients. This demands more doctors. To resolve this problem, the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) has been deploying doctors on contract basis. But most of them quit midway which aggravates the problem leaving the patients in the lurch,” Junaid Rehman said.
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