The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : PHCs to be equipped for handling Caesarean section

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Sunday, Jul 13, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

PHCs to be equipped for handling Caesarean section

Ramya Kannan and Shastry V. Mallady

The project is funded by National Rural Health Mission, State government

CHENNAI: All the 206 upgraded primary health centres serving rural populations in Tamil Nadu will soon be equipped with facilities to perform Caesarean section.

While nine PHCs have already started handling Caesarean section, work is going on in the other 30-bed PHCs as well, S. Elango, Director of Public Health, told The Hindu.

“We have not fixed a time-bound target, but our aim is to slowly equip all the upgraded PHCs with facilities so that pregnant women do not have to travel long distances to get Caesarean section done.”

Some of the districts that will get attention include Coimbatore, Ramanathapuram, Tiruvannamalai, Villupuram and Tiruchi.

A fully-equipped unit that can do Caesarean section will need an operation theatre, storage and post-operation facilities, apart from a trained anaesthetist, surgeon, obstetrician/gynaecologist and nurses.

It will cost at least Rs.75 lakh. Funds for the project are coming from the National Rural Health Mission and the State government.

Vellore district was the first to start Caesarean section in the PHCs at Banavaram, Anaicut and Lalapet. Over 600 Caesarean section had been performed in these PHCs.

Since April, the PHCs at T. Kallupatti, Chekkanoorani and Chellampatti have also started offering the service and have conducted 10 successful deliveries thus far.

In June, the facility was launched at the Nandivaram PHC and it has conducted eight successful deliveries, according to K. Vanaja, Deputy Director of Health Services, Saidapet.

Currently the PHCs perform elective Caesarean section only if the procedure is felt necessary even before the labour pain starts. Emergency cases are still being referred to the government hospitals, Dr. Elango said.

In the next phase, the PHCs at Alanganallur and Karungalagudi in Madurai will have Caesarean section facilities.

To instil confidence in other pregnant women in the village, the seven children born at T. Kallupatti through Caesarean section will be brought to a special function to be held at Peraiyur shortly, according to A. Palanichamy, Deputy Director of Health Services, Madurai.

P. Vasanthi, Madurai District Maternal and Child Health Officer, said the photographs of the children born through Caesarean section would be displayed at some PHCs as “early successful models of healthcare.”

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