Health workers and patients at Putsuri, about 120 km from Calcutta. Telegraph picture

Kalna, Feb. 18: A doctor, a nurse and two group-D employees arrive around 8 am with a box of medicines. A tarpaulin sheet is spread on a concrete slab and patients trickle in, “outdoor” tickets in hand.

By 11 am, over 50 patients are treated at probably Ben- gal’s only open-air primary health centre.

Open air because its building has been in ruins for years and no one’s bothered.

At Putsuri, in Manteswar, Burdwan, 120 km from Calcutta, the crumbling clinic highlights the irony in the government’s tall promises — of having a health centre in every panchayat and health cities spread across thousands of acres for superspeciality treatment.

“We dare not sit inside the health centre as its ceiling might cave in any moment,” said Dr S.P. Singh.

Because of the dearth of means and medicines, only fever accompanied by cough and cold and stomach ailments are treated.

The health centre is supposed to cater to at least 12,000 residents of Balarampur, Tentultala, Chuadanga, Bamunpara, Azaharnagar and Putsuri villages, about 50 km from Burdwan town.

The nearest alternative for them is the Manteswar block hospital — 20 km and a two-hour bullock cart ride away. The bigger Kalna subdivisional hospital is a 35-km journey.

The Putsuri primary health centre opened in 1960 with 20 beds and an outpatient department. It meant the villagers did not have to rush elsewhere for minor operations and delivery cases. But the roof of the single-storey building developed cracks because of lack of maintenance and a part of it collapsed in 1977.

Admission of patients has been closed since. The outpatient department functioned till 1997 but more cracks developed and the building was declared unsafe.

Then on, the health centre has been running in the open. If the weather plays foul, treatment has to wait.

Meanwhile, plunderers have been making merry. The beds, furniture, doors and windows have all been stolen.

“We have lodged complaints with police twice but nothing was done. The only tube-well also went missing after lying defunct for a year. Patients and health employees now carry their own water bottles. I have informed my superiors repeatedly about the condition of the clinic over the years,” said a senior health official of the Kalna subdivision.

Four months ago, district officials inspected the Putsuri clinic and submitted a report to chief medical officer Manzur Murshed.

“We are planning to construct a new health centre closer to the village centre. The local panchayat has promised to give us land,” Murshed said.

He has no idea when the new facility might kick off.

Till that happens, villagers like Kailash Goswami, a 48-year-old labourer with chronic cough and chest pain, will suffer. “I used to travel over 60 km for my weekly treatment at Kalna,” he said.

Goswami, who lives below poverty line, had to spend Rs 44 in bus fare alone.

Minati Pandit, 32, had to rush to Kalna to deliver her child two months ago. “I had to hire a bullock cart to take my wife to the hospital and the delay led to complications,” said her husband Dhiru.