4 Vellore tribal hamlets get health sub-centre, conducts first delivery
VELLORE: Residents of the four tribal hamlets - Kurumalai, Vellkalmalai, Nachimedu and Pallakollai – distributed sweets to celebrate the Vellore district administration starting a Health sub centre – a demand pending for several decades – at Kurumalai on Monday.
The sub centre, for which a doctor, nurse and attendants from the Oosur PHC have been posted, is temporarily housed in a classroom of the Panchayat Union Middle School where two beds are also available. The day also saw the first delivery. Manjula (23) wife of Thangaraj of the locality delivered a boy at the sub centre on inauguration. With this facility coming to their region, tribal residents now have access to better healthcare and need not carry people in a dholi to the plains for treatment.
A week ago local dailies reported that Pavunu (37), who was full-term pregnant, delivered on the way when she was carried in a dholi to a PHC from the hilly hamlet. This resulted in Vellore Collector B Kumaravel Pandian trekking to the spot and after inspection ordered the setting up of a temporary sub centre, while a proposal has been sent to the state government for a permanent structure.
The only hitch in vehicles reaching the hill top is the lack of a pucca road, the government sanctioned Rs 1.06 crore to lay a 2 km road from Athiyur to Kurumalai. “Once the road is completed, there is also a chance of an ambulance being stationed at either Oosur in the plains or at Kurumalai,” officials revealed.