Dhanbad, Sept. 2: A woman and her newborn son lie on a dirty bed in a hot and shabby room without a fan. She doesn't complain as she knows the Tundi community health centre, that is meant to cater to a 1.8 lakh population, can't offer her even clean water.

The two-storey CHC near Tundi thana, 35km from here, along Dhanbad-Tundi-Giridih Road, is for Naxalite-hit blocks of Tundi and Purbi Tundi. It has a defunct water cooling machine and water purifier, an operating theatre with a leaking roof, no inverter in the labour ward, no refrigerator to keep medicines, only one functional stretcher, one wheelchair, no common room or changing room for technicians and nurses.

Though meant to treat all kinds of diseases, most admissions to the CHC- which has five doctors, an AYUSH practitioner, seven nurses and four attendants - are for deliveries, with pregnant women and new mothers and infants forming a bulk of those who stay in the six-bed CHC and adjunct 20-bed malnutrition treatment centre.

Shoddy facilities probably explain why many mothers and newborns are referred from the CHC to neonatal care at PMCH in Dhanbad. In July and August, 16 cases were referred to PMCH _ eight each month _ out of 188 delivery cases that came to the CHC.

If Rahima Khatoon, wife of a daily wager Ishtikar Ansari, lay patiently sweating with her son born in the morning, it was because she knew she couldn't expect any better.

"I have not seen the water purifier work for the past five years," a staffer of the CHC told this reporter yesterday. "I feel sorry for patients, especially post-surgery, who have to endure without a fan during long power cuts as the generator is also defunct."

A nurse added that the saving grace was that the CHC, which got over 100 patients at the OPD and emergency, now had five doctors headed by medical officer in charge Dr Nilam Chaudhary.

"The conditions here were far worse in the last six-seven months when most doctors were on deputation. The hospital was somehow run by two lady doctors and most referral cases of childbirth were registered during that period. The situation improved since August 23 when the deputation were revoked and five doctors are now working here," she said. There is no reprieve for nurses though, she said.

"Seven nurses are too few for patients of this volume. We work in three shifts of two each or sometimes three in some shifts, which is highly inadequate as the hospital has been functioning round-the-clock from August 23."

She added that the health staff has duties that its urban counterparts couldn't imagine.

"As there is no refrigerator in the CHC dispensary, we keep crucial items such as malaria detection kits in the refrigerator of the CHC office 1km away from the main hospital, which we run and bring in case of need," said a contract worker of the dispensary.

Dr Chaudhary claimed they had asked for an inverter in the labour ward and that the water purifier and coolers would be repaired very soon. "Appointment of nurses is a government matter. But, we have raised the matter and are trying to overcome the staff crisis by deputing office staff at the hospital," she said.