KMC opens its 13th knowledge hub, dedicates it to Thalassemia

As part of its hub and spoke model for rendering better health services, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has set up its 13th knowledge hub dedicated to Thalassemia at the vector control department while it is aiming to augment the number of health centres at community level to 200.

Speaking on the same, KMC’s Chief Health Medical Officer (CMHO) Dr Subrata Roychowdhury said the civic body has always been involved in preventive measures but now it’s also going to get involved in the academic side of health which includes discussing preventive measures. He said: “We have inaugurated the 13th hub at our vector control department which is a milestone in KMC’s academic career. This knowledge hub is dedicated to Thalassemia. We are trying to infuse new ideas into the system that will help us better tackle health issues by equipping our medical officers with advanced knowledge in medicine.”

The civic body is also planning to digitally connect all its ward health centres with the chamber of the CMHO while a library-cum reading room was recently inaugurated in the Health department to aid the medical officers with knowledge in public health.

“For implementing training and adopting measures for better health services, we have 144 primary health centres and soon another 33 will come up. Very soon, we will have about 200 health centres at the community level. In the near future, besides setting up our counselling clinics in each of the health centres, we can also go for focused discussion at the community level,” he highlighted.

Tertiary care hospitals are mainly involved in 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 needs tertiary care.

This also ensures that hospitals are not bogged down with cases which can be dealt with basic medical treatment, he said.

Recently, Mayor Firhad Hakim said Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has requested 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, another section is getting deprived,” said Hakim.