It has a gleaming international airport in the vicinity but the community health centre at Shamshabad in neighbouring Ranga Reddy district presents a sharp contrast, plagued by acute shortage of medical staff and facilities.
The centre, which was ‘upgraded’ a few years ago, now runs from a gram panchayat school.
A new building sanctioned for the hospital is still under construction. Officials blame budget constraints for delay of work, inaugurated by former Home Minister P. Sabita Indra Reddy in 2009.
The premises comprise just four rooms, which hospital authorities say, are not sufficient to manage even a health outpost.
“We need at least a two-storied building with required infrastructure and facilities to run a full-fledged hospital,” a doctor said.
A team of two doctors – a paediatrician and gynaecologist – and three staff nurses manage the hospital, handling around 150 outpatients everyday. On Thursdays, tubectomy operations are conducted, leaving the sole doctor to attend to OP services.
One of the two doctors also conducts post-mortem examinations as and when medico-legal cases are brought to the hospital by police, it is pointed out.
“On occasions we are forced to spend more than two hours at the hospital waiting to meet the doctor,” Renuka, a patient complained. The problem is only compounded when one of the two doctors is on leave.
People now to go to far off places to take treatments where inpatient facility is available.
“A few people go to the Rajendranagar hospital, about 10 kilometres away, while some others go to Osmania General Hospital about 20 kilometres away,” says Naresh Goud, a resident. Local people are demanding that the district administration take steps to speed up the hospital upgradation at the earliest.
