Agartala, Feb 24 (TIWN): There are primary health centers at 138 village Panchayats and at 34 ADC villages in the state, this was stated in assembly by Health Minister Badal Choudhury. In a written reply, he informed that 469 village Panchayats and 493 ADC villages have health centers.

In most parts of the state mainly remote areas, primary health care centres are housed in dilapidated structures that further frustrate the patient’s desire to access quality care. Added to this is the absence of qualified personnel to man the centre. Given the overt concentration of government on district and  sub division hospitals , access to primary health care in rural communities remains a misery for most people in need.        

Worse still, rural communities suffer the most in shortage of manpower in the health sector. Not many health workers are willing to render service in rural areas. Most of them prefer to serve in the urban centres with array of cosmopolitan features and amenities, where promotion is assured and other forms of benefits are in abundance.

While health workers have a choice where to work, rural dwellers, basically do not have a choice where to seek medical attention. The cost of doing so is even beyond their reach. Primary health care centres  therefore become the most reliable health facilities upon which rural people seek medical attention. In fact, National Health Mission are implemented in view of functioning primary health care centers. On that note, the isolation and near-negligence of such centers have faced has more or less become the greatest undoing of the state’s healthcare system.

 Still, government can address these gaps in rural communities in providing sustainable service in primary health care. The fact that primary health care centers in villages have been reduced to mere complaint centers about ill-health has not helped matters.