Tirupati: Healthcare in temple town to get boost as MCT plans six more PHCs
MCT Commissioner PS Girisha and Health Officer Sudharani inspecting a site for setting up a new PHC at Venkatraman layout in Tirupati city
Tirupati: Municipal Corporation of Tirupati (MCT) is planning to set up 6 new health centres in the interest of city residents shortly.
Presently, only 8 Primary Health Centres have been serving people for the last many years, but those are not enough to provide health services across the city. In extend the services further, Commissioner PS Girisha has instructed the municipal health department officials to make proposals for setting up of new health centres.
The civic body is planning to set up these new health centres utilising the funds provided by the Central government and the State government. The officials started searching suitable sites in different areas in the city to set up health centres.
It may be noted that after the merger of new panchayats in Tirupati Municipal Corporation, population has reached 5 lakh. In addition, before the corona lockdown, daily one lakh devotees used to visit Tirupati.
With the existing health centres, the corporation has been finding it difficult to extend primary medical facilities to people living in slums and in colonies situated on city outskirts.
Even for small health issues, people have to go to Ruia or another big referral hospital. In many of the slums, people are approaching RMP doctors locally and spending a lot of money for minor health issues.
Taking these issues into consideration, the Commissioner took the decision to extend primary medical and health facilities to all the areas of the city, including the outskirts.
Hence, the Commissioner has decided to take the approval from the State Health Department for setting up 6 new health centres in the city.
For this, officials saw the suitable sites at Jeevakona, Thimminaidu Palem, Gollavani Gunta, Journalist Colony, Munireddy Nagar and Venkata Ramana layout. The commissioner already held a preliminary discussion with MCT health officer Dr Sudha Rani.
In this regard, a team of engineering staff and health officials visited a few residential localities to collect opinions of locals on where to set up a health centre in their locality.