HYDERABAD: Painting a sorry picture of the primary rural health situation in Telangana, the Rural Health statistics (RHS-2020-21) released by Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandviya has shown there is a whopping 53% shortage in the number of Community Health Centres (CHCs) in the State.
In terms of Primary Health Centres (PHCs) as well which is the most elementary type of medical set-up, there is a 12% shortage. According to the report, 721 PHCs are needed, but only 636 exist leading to a shortfall of 85 centres. In terms of CHCs, there must be 180, but currently only 85 are present, leading to a shortfall of 95 centres.As per the report there are currently, 4,744 sub-centres, 636 PHCs and 85 CHCs in the rural areas of the State. Telangana, as per the report, has 53% of its population in rural areas.
Where’re the specialists?
If this wasn’t bad enough, several crucial positions in terms of staff are vacant. For instance in CHCs, various specialists like surgeons, obstetrics and gynaecologist, physician and pediatrics are also low. As against 340 specialists required in these hospitals according to the population, only 258 were found to be working, leading to a shortfall of 82 such specialists.
In terms of radiologists, pharmacists, lab technicians — there was a shortfall of 41, 279 and 74 personnel. The only surplus staffing was in terms of nursing staff in CHCs and PHCs and in terms of ANM nurses in sub-centres and PHCs.Between the RHS, March 2020 and RHS March, 2021 survey, no new additional staff or new PHC or CHC was added, leaving the State to tackle the pandemic from a much weaker position than it should have.
The health profile programme gathers steam at Sircilla; 220 teams on ground
Rajanna-Sircilla: The government has been effectively implementing health profile programme in the Rajanna-Sircilla district. Nearly 220 screening teams have been deployed to cover the entire population aged 18 years and above under the programme. Officials in the district administration say that their focus is on conducting screening of over 4.2 lakh people and raising awareness about e-health cards. Collector Anuraag Jayanti said that there was a special focus 15-points awareness programme to make the district healthy. “Once a person’s health profile is digitized, they will have all the information about their health history available in hand. If they go to any hospital and display their e-health card, it will be much easier to diagnose and treat them,” Anuraag said.