The outbreak of epidemics during the rainy season in the Agency areas can be avoided to a large extent, if preventive measures are taken by the government at the right time, felt speakers at a roundtable on ‘Health issues in the Visakha Agency’, organised by the Praja Arogya Vedika here on Wednesday.
The Agency area of Visakhapatnam comprises 11 mandals and 3,500 villages with a total population of about 6 lakh. The government had identified around 2,500 of these villages as ‘high risk’. The initiation of preventive measures in a planned manner would have prevented the outbreak of diseases.
There are 204 Sub Centres for the 3,500 villages in the Agency. The tribal people have to walk for 30 km to 50 km to reach the Sub Centres. Though the government had declared that the 36 PHCs would be upgraded so that they would function round-the-clock, only 10 of them are working 24/7. There is shortage of staff and drugs even at these 10 PHCs. The condition of those PHCs, which are yet to be upgraded, is worse.
Though there is a long-pending demand for provision of food to patients at the PHCs, it is not being implemented. An additional 10 PHC s are needed in the Agency and specialist doctors should be appointed at the Area Hospital at Araku. There is acute shortage of drugs at the hospitals in the Agency areas.
Praja Arogya Vedika leader T. Kameswara Rao said there were a couple of villages to which no doctors had visited for seven decades. The first doctor to visit was a retired DMHO Rama Rao, who went there as part of a medical camp organised by the Vedika. He alleged that malathion spraying was not done in March and May as per schedule.
