The Palakkad district administration has written to the State government seeking administrative sanction to construct two more floors for Government Tribal Specialty Hospital at Kottathara, near Agali, and increase the number of hospital beds.
It has termed the lack of infrastructure and other facilities at the hospital as one of the primary reasons for the worsening health situation in tribal majority Attappady.
Permission has also been sought for utilising Rs.2 crore sanctioned recently for the health sector in Attappady to improve facilities at the hospital.
Many issues Talking to The Hindu , District Collector K. Ramachandran said the hospital was facing a number of problems, including lack of specialty doctors and technicians to operate devices such as scanners. A detailed request had been sent to the State government seeking necessary facilities so that the hospital could provide better healthcare in the region.
Immediate steps were needed to make it a quality hospital for tribal health. The practice of referring patients to hospitals in Coimbatore and Palakkad should end.
He said improving facilities at the hospital and various primary health centres under it would be vital to curb the rising infant mortality.
New scheme Mr. Ramachandran said the district administration had formulated a new Grama Sahodari (village sister) scheme in Attappady to avoid child deaths in remote hamlets and ensure timely medical care to the needy.
“Tribal health promoters and ASHA workers are not able to focus on remote tribal hamlets. Under the new scheme, we are selecting at least one woman social worker from each vulnerable tribal hamlet. They will get one-month training under the Health Department. The selected persons will be middle-aged women who can advise young mothers about pregnancy-related complications and neonatal care,” he said.
In the first batch, 30 women would be trained, and they would be provided with a monthly honorarium of Rs.2,000. More women would be trained in future to meet the needs of each tribal hamlet.
These women would supply first aid medicines and take the initiative to hospitalise the needy, the Collector said.
They would periodically visit houses of pregnant and lactating women to make them aware of the need to consult doctors regularly. The Grama Sahodaris would help ensure supply of nutritious food to pregnant women, he said.
