Services: More KMC satellite Health centres keep mobile units at bay

Update: 2025-02-27 18:55 GMT

Kolkata: The setting up of more satellite health centres to bridge the gap in rendering healthcare services has compelled the Kolkata Municipal Corporation’s (KMC) to keep its five mobile medical units in abeyance.

According to the KMC, during 2024 as many as 2464763 patients visited the health establishments of the civic body including the urban health and wellness centres (UHWCs), better known as satellite centres. So far, about 22 such UHWCs have been set up in the city to bridge the gap in services. Such centres have helped in taking off some load from the 144 urban primary health centres (UPHCs) in the city.

One of the apparent effects of such augmentation of the UHWCs is exterminating the need for the five mobile medical vans of the KMC.

An official said these mobile units have now been kept in abeyance since more UHWCs would be coming up in the city, thereby filling in the service-gap at the periphery.

The five mobile units were inaugurated in 2018 and were equipped with a doctor, a laboratory technician, a pharmacist and a driver cum helper.

It catered to both communicable and non-communicable diseases similar to that of the health centres.

Such units were meant to deliver services in the remote areas.

Mayor Firhad Hakim had said that the civic body often gets complaints from residents of wards with huge areas where a primary healthcare centre alone is unable to serve the entire population of that ward.

The satellite centres in addition to KMC’s primary healthcare centre would act as a force multiplier. Such centres are also catering to vaccination of children. Each of the 22 satellite centres has a doctor, a nurse and a pharmacist.

This is also expected to reduce the queues outside the primary health centres and share the load.

It was learnt that a grant was received under the 15th Finance Commission to build over 50 health and wellness centres in the city.

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