Six primary health care centres spread across all three action areas of New Town will start functioning both as Covid-19 testing centres and vaccination points from Monday.
While one such centre is located near the Akankha crossing in Action Area II, another is located behind the Delhi Public School near the Biswa Bangla Convention Centre and a third is located near the Sukhobrishti Housing Complex in Action Area III. The rest of the centres are located in Action Area I.
The centres will be run by the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) which provides civic services to New Town.
According to an NKDA health department official, each primary health care centre will have at least two doctors, nurses as well as trained vaccinators.
The NKDA already has a permanent vaccine centre behind Pride Hotel and these added centres will ensure that residents won’t need to travel long distances to get vaccinated.
According to a senior NKDA official, such centres act as the tip of the spear and the first line of defence to detect and treat seasonal outbreaks of a range of diseases, including malaria and dengue. Mother and child care facilities would also be provided at these centres.
“These centres will focus on providing immediate and initial treatment to the residents. In case a very serious patient turns up at the centre, the doctors and the nurses will be able to stabilise him/ her and then send them to the nearest hospital,” said the official.
Apart from providing treatment, the primary health centres will also undertake a vaccination drive.
The number of potential vaccine recipients has increased manifold in the past few weeks at the NKDA-run centres as well as camps in Action Areas I, II and III, the official said. The gap between the second and precaution dose of the Covid-19 vaccine has been reduced to six months from nine.
Free booster doses are now being administered at all government-run vaccine centres.
