On July 29, 2015, the Coimbatore Corporation floated tenders for construction for five urban health centres in a few areas in the city. Soon thereafter, it awarded contracts to successful bidders.
A little over three years after it floated the tenders, the Corporation is yet to throw open the health centres. And, of those centres the one in Vilankurichi stands out as the construction is yet to reach even the lintel stage.
A visit to the site shows that only concrete columns stand atop the basement. Sources in the engineering wing of the Corporation say that the contractor has erected 14 columns and is yet to raise 15 more.
The Corporation has earmarked ₹ 42 lakh for the Vilankurichi health centre, which sees 80 pregnant women a day for consultation and another 40 men and women as outpatients.
The centre, at present, functions out of a three-room rented building, which is on a lane where two motorcycles cannot pass through at the same time.
The Corporation has been paying over ₹ 5,000 a month in rent ever since it took the house sometime in 2011.
Sources in the health wing say that medical examination of pregnant women is a problem as it is a cloth screen that divides them and the outpatients. Treating people for non-communicable diseases or helping pregnant women deliver babies or carrying out small tests in the present set up is almost impossible. The Vilankurichi health centre sends pregnant women for delivery either to the primary health centre in Kovilpalayam or the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, both of which are at least 10 km away.
The centre is in badly need of a room to treat people for non-communicable diseases, delivery, ante-natal care, and laboratory and it is precisely for this reason that the Corporation began constructing the new building, the sources say.
Little space
They add that when patients are in the centre, it is difficult for the staff to even move around, given that tables, cots and other equipment have eaten away the little space available.
Asked about the slow progress, the Corporation officials say until recently, the pace of construction progressed at snail’s place.
Following intervention from Kavundampalayam MLA V.C. Aarukutty and senior civic body officials, the contractor has promised to complete the centre in two months. The officials say that the Corporation will soon throw open the new building.
