CHENNAI: Delivery and women's health equipment worth approximately `12 lakh to `15 lakh donated through a NGO to the Perumbakkam Primary Health Centre (PHC), which serves a population of around 1.2 lakh, has been lying unused for a year-and-ahalf. On an average, every month this year, 160-180 women in Perumbakkam, mostly slum dwellers, who shifted from urban areas to the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board tenements, were to give birth.
This is a marked increase from the average 120-140 women who were expecting per month last year. All these women are forced to travel 25 km to the Tambaram Government Hospital, or to the Medavakkam PHC. This, when a room containing delivery equipment and furniture in Perumbakkam's own PHC lies locked up.
In 2019, an NGO provided 24 pieces of medical equipment for delivery and women's health, along with generators, air conditioners a n d C C T V cameras, to the PHC on behalf of a large Japanese Corporation. The medical equipment included a microprocessor laboratory centrifuge, cell counter, fetal doppler (to detect fetal heartbeat), ECG machine, cardiotocography machines (to record fetal heartbeat and uterine contractions) among others.
It also supplied medical equipment for breast and cervical cancer. This equipment too is not being used. When contacted, a staff of the NGO that facilitated the supply of equipment said, "We are constantly following up and are not sure why the equipment is not being used." Residents at the Slum Board settlement said a settlement of its size without easily-accessible maternity care was unacceptable.
"We have to take expecting mothers to Tambaram even in the dead of the night. At night, the doctor is not available at the PHC (in Perumbakkam)," said Dhana, a resident. When contacted, a senior health official said he would ask the officials to check and report back to him on the issue.