The Seeranaickenpalayam (SN Palayam) maternity centre, run by the Coimbatore Corporation, functions out of two classrooms at the Corporation high school on Maruthamalai Road. The centre has been there since January 2016 after the Corporation decided to construct a new building by demolishing the one on Gokulam Colony Fourth Street.
The centre on Gokulam Colony Fourth Street has been in service since 1989.
The centre functions out of two classroom in two different buildings of the Corporation school and minus a few equipment, which are stored at the Corporation health centre on Lawley Road.
With the bare minimum equipment and inadequate space, the staff at the SN Palayam centre have been treating over 50 patients a day and that included pregnant women. Sources in the centre say that when women visit the centre, they are unable to provide them even proper seating facilities, leave alone provide a convenient place for them to interact with the doctor.
The centre caters to women from SN Palayam,, Sundapalayam, Linganur, the eastern parts of Vadavalli and PN Pudur covering a population of over 65,000.
The sources say that till such time the centre functioned out of its own building on Gokulam Colony Fourth Street, they used to record at least 10 deliveries a month.
Now they send the women to the nearest Corporation maternity centre on Dr. Krishnasamy Road or Gandhi Park or Bharathi Park Road.
They only provide ante-natal and post-natal care to the visiting women and carry out field work.
The shifting has so much crippled the activity that they are unable to provide even clean toilets to women. Saradha Ravikumar of SN Palayam, a woman who goes to the centre for ante-natal check up, says that the women are forced to use either the school toilet or the public convenience facility near the PN Pudur bus stop.
The sources say that even the school students and teachers are inconvenienced because of the arrangement.
Officials in the Coimbatore Corporation say that the civic body took up the work to demolish and construct a new building only sometime ago and completed the ground work preparation only a fortnight ago.
It will soon complete the construction by the end of next year to ensure that the centre goes back to Gokulam Colony Fourth Street at the earliest.
