Chief ministerM K Stalininaugurated 500 urban public Health centres that will offer free healthcare Services, including Vaccines for pregnant Women and children, tests for diseases such as tuberculosis, hypertension and diabetes, and medicines for ailments to urban poor.
The 500 urban primary healthcare centres 140 under the Greater Chennai Corporation, 50 for Coimbatore, 46 for and 25 each for Salem, Trichy, and Tiruppur in addition to 189 UPHCs in municipalities were inaugurated from the new centre on Vijayaraghava Road in T Nagar. Inspired by the Aam Aadmi Mohalla clinics in 2022,Stalinmade the announcement in the assembly that the state would also have 708 urban primary health centres to cater to the needs of the people living in the cities. Three decades ago, when young doctors graduated, they would set up small clinics near their houses, benefitting people in their neighbourhood. However, such clinics have vanished, said health minister Ma Subramanian. Now these urban centres will work for the urban poor, just like how primary health centres have worked for the people in rural areas, he added.
Each of these clinics, built at a cost of 25 lakh, will have a doctor, nurse, health inspector and an assistant recruited through the district health societies.
These UPHCs will offer telemedicine facilities for e-consultations and utilise the e-sanjeevani app to refer patients visiting these clinics to higher levels of care, such as peripheral hospitals, district headquarters, or government medical college hospitals