A delegation of the Union Health Ministry visited Dehradun to assess the ground situation of the urban health centres, running now on public-private partnership (PPP) mode, on Wednesday. During inspection, they were learnt to have found irregularities in the PPP-run health centres. They also scrutinised the register of the State health department following which they reprimanded the health department officials for not implementing the terms and conditions fixed while allotting PPP mode.
Interestingly, the officials being found unaware of the Centre-envisaged terms and conditions, the delegation warned that they would stop the budget in future if they fail to fulfil all the conditions laid down regarding allotment of health cetres on PPP mode.
It would be pertinent to mention here that around three dozen health centres in Dehradun, Kotwar, Udham Singh Nagar and Naintail have been given on PPP mode out of which 16 are located in Dehradun alone.
The responsibility of running such centres being given to NGOs, it was expected by the Centre that they would provide health facility to the working class people who find it difficult to visit the hospitals during their OPD timings. Keeping this in mind, the timing was fixed from 2 pm to 8 pm. During the inspection, the delegation found that the State health department has fixed their OPD timing from 9 am to 4 pm.
Besides, they have not made adequate arrangements of doctors, nurses and ANMs.
The delegation members sounded displeased over the OPD timing when they visited Kargi at Bhagat Singh Colony and Majra. "We have fixed the timing keeping the interests of the working class people in mind. But they have arbitrarily changed the timing. Besides, they have not taken pains to see whether the arrangements have been put into place," said one of the annoyed delegation members.