TIRUCHY: More than 25,000 residents across 41 villages, including tribal hamlets in the Pachamalai hills, await the opening of a new Primary Health Centre (PHC) at Sengattupatti in the Thuraiyur block despite its completion in January 2025.
The new PHC, which was built at a cost of Rs 1.26 crore, awaits an access road. What serves as an alternative medium is an old structure built in 1989. Outside the old structure, patients and nurses sit on steel benches.
Medicines are dispensed in the nearby room, where a nurse squeezes between shelves to hand out tablets and anti-rabies injections. There are no beds inside the old building and doctors often step outside to consult under a shed where the roof feels safe.
"We are scared to even admit pregnant women here," said a staff member, pointing at the damp walls. For villagers, who see the locked building every day, assurances mean little. "Why build a hospital if they won't open it?" asked an elderly resident.
K Selvi, a daily wage worker from Sengattupatti, who lives nearby the facility, said she had to take her grandchild with a severe stomach ache to Thuraiyur last month after the staff in PHC referred to kid GH. "I lost a day's wages and spent money for travel.
If the new centre opens, we won't suffer like this," she said. For residents of tribal settlements such as Thonnur, the journey is even harsher. "We travel kilometres in two-wheelers to reach Sengattupatti, the only PHC available for us, only to be told to go further to Thuraiyur.
For a simple check-up, we waste a whole day," said M Selvaraj, a tapioca farmer. Health officials acknowledged the delay. "The new PHC is complete and will be opened soon.
Once the approach road becomes motorable, services will be shifted there," said a senior health department official. A Block Development Officer confirmed that road-laying work is currently under way.