Noolppuzha PHC scores 98 per cent to turn nation's best

KALPETTA: The Primary Health Centre, Noolppuzha, a jungle village surrounded by forests and located close to the Tamil Nadu border, has been selected as the best PHC (bagging 98 percent score) of the nation as per the National Quality Assurance Standard parameters set by the expert panel of National Health Mission (NHM) under the Union Ministry of Health.  

The quality of treatment imparted to inpatients as well as outpatients by the dedicated staff, including four doctors, state-of-the-art facilities in the laboratory and pharmacy and the outreach mechanism, including telemedicine, to ensure better public health, along with foolproof administration helped the PHC to achieve the rare feat.  

The PHC, catering to predominantly tribal population, has unique facilities like treadmill for youth, park for children and pays special attention to the deprived sections. A team of experts from NHM visited the PHC in the first week of August.

Medical officer Dr  Dahar Muhammed   told Deccan Chronicle that all-out support was extended by the Noolppuzha panchayat headed by K. Sobhankumar. “Where else a panchayat will spend more than '1.5 crore in a few years for improving the infrastructure of a PHC?” he asked. 

On the selection procedure, Dr Dahar Muhammed said “it was a long process.” At district-level scrutiny we fared well and were selected to state-level where we bagged only 78 percent score. For getting selected to each level, a PHC has to bag a minimum of 70 percent score. When selected to the national- level, all the four doctors of our team divided the various tasks and ensured improvement in each area, he said. 

“The health department in the district headed by DMO Dr R. Renuka and the service of my team, including doctors, nurses and staff resulted in winning this national recognition,” he said.