Chief Minister N. Rangasamy on Monday inaugurated the new building of the JIPMER Urban Health Centre (JUHC) in Kurusukuppam.
The three-storeyed building has been constructed at an approximate cost of ₹5 crore.
K. Lakshminarayanan, pro-tem Speaker and Rakesh Aggarwal, Director of JIPMER, participated.
According to a press note from JIPMER, the JUHC was established in 1954 to provide a comprehensive, family-folder-based healthcare for four wards under Puducherry Municipality, namely Kurusukuppam, Chinnayapuram, Vazhaikulam, Vaithikuppam.
This health centre serves a population of approximately 10,000, predominantly of fisherfamilies and daily-wage labourers. It provides all essential services to all age groups, including special clinics for pregnant and lactating mothers, immunisation clinic for children under five years of age and diagnosis, treatment and regular follow-up of hypertension, diabetes, asthma, thyroid disease, psychiatric illnesses, heart disease and disorders of adolescents.
The JUHC provides basic laboratory services for diagnosis and follow-up of anaemia, diabetes, thyroid illness and malaria. It coordinates serological investigations for HIV, syphilis and hepatitis for pregnant mothers with the main JIPMER hospital.
It also serves as a training centre for undergraduate students and postgraduate students in the department of Preventive & Social Medicine, Public Health, Pulmonary and Geriatric Medicine, nursing and several other allied health science courses and capacity building programmes for Anganwadi workers.
During the pandemic, the health team of JUHC has been rendering a range of routine services in addition to Covid-related activities, such as testing of suspected Covid cases, regular monitoring of home isolation cases, coordinating referral services for moderate to severe cases of Covid to JIPMER and other medical colleges and hospitals. Currently, vaccination for Covid is being provided to all people above 45 years of age and frontline workers.
The new building has the added benefit of a more spacious outpatient consultation area, besides designated areas for counselling services, weekly consultation with specialists from the departments of OBGY, Medicine, Psychiatry, Ophthalmology from JIPMER who visit the centres.
It is proposed to provide physiotherapy services and to hold regular health awareness sessions for the beneficiaries. Door-to-door community-based screening for cancer and other non-communicable diseases are planned in the future, Dr. Aggarwal said.
