The four urban health centres in the city are all ‘open’ but two of them are not functioning owing to shortage of doctors and other staff. The centres were set up long ago in areas where the financially backward and working class live in large numbers.
In fact, till about a month ago, all four centres were virtually closed. As a result, many of the poor and labourers in Mysuru were having to spend a lot of money to avail health facilities for themselves and their family.
Since their inception, the centres have been managed by the Mysuru City Corporation (MCC). After people began expressing resentment over the virtual close of the centres, the corporation wrote to the Health Department to take over the centres and run them under the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM).
The Health Department in turn told the MCC that taking over and managing the centres was a policy decision and could only be done if the State government issues such an order.
Helping hand
However, the department, at the behest of the previous MCC commissioner and a few elected representatives, deputed doctors and other staff under the NUHM to two urban primary health centres and restarted the health centres about a month ago The department had obtained prior permission from the government to depute doctors as a temporary measure.
The Health Department told the civic body that it was managing the two centres on humanitarian grounds, but it was the MCC’s responsibility to either make arrangements to run the centres in future or prevail upon the government to direct the department to take over the centres. The department had also pleaded helplessness to run the other two centres.
Sources in the department told The Hindu that it would run the two centres for a few more months, by which time it expects the MCC to have made alternative arrangements.
Because of the closure of the other two centres, people are being put to hardship. It may be recalled that the city was gripped by dengue disease a few months ago and several hundreds of people were tested positive.
