NEW HEALTH SUB CENTRES TO COME UP IN T.N. WITH NO NEW STAFF POSTS, BASIC INFRASTRUCTURE

The State government, while giving administrative nod for establishing the HSCs (617 in rural and 25 in urban), has stated that creation of new posts will not be sanctioned and ANMs have to be redeployed to the HSCs as the posts of VHNs and ANMs carries identical scale of pay and are interchangeable

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Tamil Nadu is set to see the creation of 642 new Health Sub Centres (HSC) in rural and urban areas. However, there is a catch. The new facilities have been approved, but without new staff posts and basic infrastructure support. Instead, Auxiliary Nurse Midwives (ANM), who are working in Primary Health Centres (PHC), will be redeployed to the new HSCs.

This decision has raised some serious questions on how the Health department has been handling acute shortages of manpower, including some 3,000-odd vacancies of Village Health Nurses (VHN)/ANMs for the past four years, while adding on new health infrastructure.

The State currently has 8,713 HSCs, with the norms prescribing one HSC for every 5,000-6,000 population. Establishing 642 urban and rural HSCs on the basis of population was one of the announcements made by the Health Minister in the Assembly earlier this year.

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