KMC sets up two satellite health & wellness centres

Kolkata: In a bid to augment the capacity in rendering civic health services in the city, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has set up two new satellite health and wellness centres in Wards 10 and 139 which will attend to people who find it difficult to access the main primary health care centres in the wards.

It is learnt that Mayor Firhad Hakim will inaugurate an urban health and wellness centre in Ward 10 under Borough-II on May 22, and another such centre in Ward 139 under Borough XV. The events will also be graced by MLAs Shashi Panja and Abdul Khaleque Molla, apart from the deputy mayor Atin Ghosh along with other KMC officials.

Speaking on the number of satellite health centres, a KMC health department official said that the civic body will have about a total of 200 health centres at the community level in days to come. Soon, besides setting up the counselling clinics in each of the health centres, KMC can also go for focused discussion on health issues at the community level, said the official.

Recently, the mayor Firhad Hakim said that the chief minister Mamata Banerjee has requested KMC to explore the possibility of setting up such satellite centres in all 144 wards.

“We are trying to set up satellite health centres or urban health wellness centres in the wards which cover a huge area with a considerable population. It was observed that in such areas, although one section of people are getting to avail the healthcare services from the main primary healthcare centre another section is getting deprived” said Hakim.

Commenting on the importance of such primary health care centres, the KMC health official said that tertiary care hospitals are mainly involved in advanced treatment but it is the primary health centres that cater to a large number of people and deals with the first stage which is diagnosis and basic treatment, and determines if a patient at all needs tertiary care. This also ensures that hospitals are not bogged down with cases which can be dealt with basic medical treatment which will allow these tertiary health care centres to attend to severe medical cases.