The Primary Health Centre at Navelim, since its inauguration on December 18, 2016, has proved to be a big boon for the locals besides easing the pressure on Hospicio at Margao to a great extent, even though it is functioning with skeletal staff.
The in-charge of the PHC, who was earlier managing the PHC at Quepem, has set in the proper mechanism to ensure that people are attended to promptly and do not have to unnecessarily waste time.
Although the PHC has only one medical officer and one nurse, both of them work tirelessly to attend to the patients who begin arriving even before the centre opens in the morning. Patients are attended to up to 4 pm.
Many patients, who undergo treatment at Hospicio, come to the Navelim PHC for follow-up treatment and the staff makes arrangements to get the medicines to be given to them from Hospicio. On an average every day around 50 patients are being attended to at this PHC.
While whichever medicines are to be dispensed free as decided by the government are given to the patients, the medical officer takes great pains to explain why some medicines have to be purchased from pharmacies and how those medicines will help the patient.
The presence of two beds at the health centre enables the doctors to keep patients at the centre itself for observation. Whoever accompanies the patient is told to come at a certain time to take him/her home.
The PHC, besides attending to patients having routine problems like cold, fever, diarrhea, constipation, pressure, diabetes, etc. also does dressing and first aid in case of people having wounds or accident victims.
The spacious premises situated on the ground floor makes it convenient for patients to visit the centre and the pleasant demeanor of the staff makes it quite a pleasant tolerable visit to the centre despite the anxiety and worry of the illness.
