TIRUCHY: Several pregnant women visiting primary health centres in Thuraiyur, Manapparai and Vaiyampatti areas of Tiruchy for delivery are being sent to Government Hospitals located 10-15 km away due a severe shortage of water. Around 11 primary health centres in these three areas are struggling to meet their daily water requirement.
As a result, most of the centres are asking patients seeking admission to head to government hospitals located farther away.
The worst hit among these are the four primary health centres in Thuraiyur.
With borewells having dried up, several centres here are using funds from the National Rural Health Mission to buy water from private suppliers.
Officials are concerned about getting this expense audited at the end of the year.
Still, the quantity is not enough to meet the needs of all in-patients, says officials. Practitioners say most of the cases that public health centres deal with are childbirths.
“Without sufficient water supply, dealing with deliveries is difficult. We attend to as many deliveries as possible, depending on water supply. The rest are sent to GH,” said a PHC worker.
“Government hospitals are managing the situation with bore-wells. It’s the public health centres in remote villages that are really hit by the current crisis,” said an official source.
“Borewells have gone dry in most of these public health centres. The supply from the drinking water scheme, too, is irregular.”
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Reacting to the issue, deputy director of health services in Tiruchy, Dr S Subramani said: “Panchayat unions are requested to take care of the water requirements of PHCs. We have instructed the PHCs to manage with available water.”