Healthcare set to get a boost in Chennai

CHENNAI: In a bid to make the healthcare services more robust, the city corporation will soon set up 140 urban health and wellness centres (UHWC) across 15 zones under Centre’s flagship Ayushman Bharat- Comprehensive Primary Healthcare scheme. Forty polyclinics and four diagnostic laboratories will also be established at an allocated cost of 88 crore.

The civic body officials have proposed that the UHWCs function from 4 PM onwards till night. Currently the existing urban primary healthcare health centres take patients from 9 in the morning till 4 PM. “In most places, we are planning to convert the land used for Amma mini clinics as sites for UHWCs,” an official told TOI.

The city currently has 140 UPHCs and 192 Amma Mini Clinics. However, latter is only used for vaccination purposes now.

Officials said each UHWC will be set up at a cost of Rs 25 lakh and will be manned by five staff, medical doctors, sanitary nurses, multi-purpose health workers, and two hospital workers. “We have received the funds from Union Government and the land identification and staff recruitment process is underway,” said a senior corporation official.

Officials said the UHWC’s primary aim is to to provide care in pregnancy, childbirth, neonatal, and infant healthcare services. While there is no proper database of a population registry for health, the UHWC aims to change that with its IT services. The Central Government has directed all the states to establish a ‘wellness room’ for creating a health database of patients visiting the UHWC.

“It will also be involved in services like population enumeration, empanelment, and non-communicable disease screening,” officials said, adding that the 40 polyclinics would provide care for common ophthalmic and ENT problems, and basic oral healthcare.

The Centre has also said that the time taken for care at the UHWCs must not be more than 30 minutes and the medical officers must also refer patients to tertiary hospitals

Meanwhile, the diagnostic labs in the city will facilitate screening for all the crucial communicable diseases under the National Health Programmes (Tuberculosis, Leprosy, Hepatitis, HIV- AIDS, Malaria Kala-azar, Filariasis, and other vector-borne diseases) and mental disorders and cancers.

A section of these 140 UHWCs are expected to be opened by May 2022, officials said.