Jamshedpur, Feb. 17: The East Singhbhum district administration would open 10 pathological centres on premises of private and government hospitals in the city for patients suffering from tuberculosis (TB).
Some of the city hospitals that have been identified as potential centres include Tata Main Hospital, Telco Hospital, Rajasthan Seva Sadan, ADM Hospital, Tinplate Hospital and MGM Hospital.
These centres would conduct pathological tests to confirm if a person suffers from the disease. The tests and the medicines would be provided free of cost to the patients.
“We have decided to open 31 such centres, including 10 in the district, within the next six months to control the spread of the disease,” civil surgeon M.L. Agarwal told The Telegraph. The decision to open 31 centres, both in urban and rural areas, was taken during today’s meeting of District TB Control Society (DTBCS), an organisation headed by the deputy commissioner Nidhi Khare.
Agarwal said each of these 31 centres would have the necessary infrastructure to carry out the tests. “Provisions would be there to provide free medicines at the centre. There would be about 10 trained personnel in each centre to carry out the tests and provide medicines,” the district civil surgeon said.
District administration sources added that unlike other districts, East Singhbhum does not have a high rate of TB cases. “But we are not taking any chances and have decided to take all precautionary measures to tackle the disease,” sources said.
The society would get in touch with private hospitals and request the administration to provide them space for the centres. “We have sounded the management of some of the hospitals of the city about our decision. There should not be any problem to set up centres in the private hospitals,” Agarwal said.
DTBCS sources said the initiative of the district administration to open detection centres at hospitals comes in wake of the central government’s renewed nation-wide efforts to tackle the disease under its renewed national tuberculosis control programme (RNTCP).
