Bhubaneswar, July 3: The plan to set up urban health centres under the National Urban Health Mission (NUHM), which were to provide quality health care service to the people in the city, still remains a non-starter.

There were plans to develop 12 existing dispensaries into urban primary health centres and two hospitals into urban community health centres. Of these, the Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) controls five dispensaries and one hospital while the remaining are maintained by the health and family welfare department.

Although the BMC-run dispensaries have been upgraded in terms of infrastructure, inadequate manpower has come in the way for providing quality health care services. According to the NUHM guidelines, there should be a specialised doctor and at least two auxiliary nurses and midwives in each primary health centre. The health centres should also have drug stores and blood-testing facilities along with pathology services, but none of these services were present in any of these health centres. Ironically, even after upgrade, these health centres are still running as dispensaries.

"The health centre is here only for on paper. I have rarely seen any doctor here. The authorities had put up a board last year that says that it is an urban primary health centre. However, the services have remained the same," said Rasulgarh resident Tutu Baliarsingh on the health centre at GGP Colony.

Civic body officials claimed that all the five dispensaries under the municipal corporation had been upgraded to primary health centres and the necessary recruitment was in process. "We have upgraded all the five dispensaries following national standards. Now the recruitment is going on. Once it is done, the health centres will run according to the plans," said a senior civic body official, adding that recruitment would be over in the next four months.

The city is yet to see any urban community health centre following the failure of the civic body officials to upgrade the existing Municipal Hospital. The hospital at Unit-IV, run by the health and family welfare department has been partially upgraded, but is not serving the purpose of a community health centre.

The BMC recently decided to rope in private partners to complete the task.

"We have already floated tender to select a private partner that will develop the municipal hospital and community health centres. It will also remain responsible for maintenance of services at the primary health centres. The private partner will construct, recruit and maintain these health centres," said mayor Ananta Narayan Jena.

The government had launched the ambitious National Urban Health Mission in 2013 to provide quality health care services to the urban population. Although three years have passed since the introduction of the scheme, the services are yet to take complete shape in the city allegedly due to the slow work of the administration.

A senior NUHM official said this was a huge project that needed more time. "We had decided to develop and construct seven community health centres across the state. Two of these will be come up in Bhubaneswar. The centres need to be developed following the national standards. We had asked BMC to expedite the job. We hope to complete the job by next year," said the official.