The Gazetteers Department

The Public Health of the district & looked after by three agencies, viz., the Public Health Department of the State, local bodies and village panchayats.

At the head of the Public Health Department is the Director of Public Health, with his headquarters at Poona. District Health Officer in charge of Kolaba district is directly under the Deputy Director of Public Health Services, Bombay Division.

District Health Officer organises measures of environmental sanitation and hygiene in fairs and festivals, investigates the causes, origin and spread of diseases both epidemic and endemic, and adopts preventive measures to control diseases such as smallpox, cholera, gunieaworm, typhoid, filaria, malaria, poliomyalites etc., inspects and advises municipalities, village panchayats and village authorities about health, sanitation, drainage and water supply, inspects primary health centres, maternity and child health centres and subsidised medical practitioners' centres; looks after the industrial and school hygiene; recommends to the licensing authority, the issue of licences for cinema theatres and other places of public amusement; inspects sites for school buildings, burial grounds, village extension etc., and gives opinion regarding their suitability from the point of view of public health and inspects factories and mines in the capacity of an ex-officio Factory or Mine Inspector. He also carries out health education with the help of his subordinate staff, inspects family planning centres, survey, education and treatment units (leprosy) and also carries out immunisation programmes more especially B. C. G. vaccination against tuberculosis.

Functions of Public Health Officers.

Medical Officers in charge of primary health centres provide necessary leadership in the servicing of integrated preventive and curative measures in the district. They are responsible for overall supervision of duties and functions of the staff of these centres. They are thus ultimately responsible for all services rendered by the primary health centre, which include medical care, control of communicable diseases, maintenance of vital statistics, maternity and child health, school health, family planning, health education, nutrition and environmental sanitation, etc.

The Medical Officer in charge of Leprosy Subsidiary Centre is responsible for the overall charge of the centre.

The main duty of the Epidemic Medical Officers is to control epidemics, and in non-epidemic times to adopt interepidemic measures (i.e., measures for prevention of epidemics when there is no actual outbreak) and also to render medical relief in rural areas. An epidemic van has been provided for the purpose. On the first report of an outbreak of an epidemic they go to the place to carry out mass inoculations or vaccinations, disinfection and disinfestation, protection of water-supply and domiciliary treatment.

Nurse midwives and midwives are mainly responsible for maternity and child welfare activities, which is the most important activity of the primary health centres. Their service includes (a) institutional domicile mid-wifery, (b) training of indigenous dais, (c) antenatal and post-natal care in homes and clinic, (d) care of the nursing mother and of infant up to one year of age and (e) care of the preschool age children.

They are mainly responsible for maternity and child health services. However they take active part in other services viz., primary health, family planning, health education, nutrition and school health services, etc.

Sanitary Inspectors.

The Sanitary Inspector is responsible for all Public Health matters in his charge including control of communicable diseases, environmental sanitation, improvement of vital statistics, and Health Education. He conducts regular vaccination inspection with the intention of improving the standard of vaccination and sanitation in rural areas. Government have a scheme to replace the existing vaccinators by persons holding Sanitary Inspectors qualifications. The latter are styled as Sanitary Sub-Inspectors.

Sanitary Sub-Inspectors and Vaccinators.

The main duty of Vaccinators and Sanitary Sub-Inspectors is to carry out vaccination in their respective charges. They also assist in carrying out anti-epidemic measures and sanitary works in villages with the help of the sanitary squads under them. The main duty of these squads is to improve the sanitation of the villages which have no Panchayats. They construct soakage pits, manure pits, trench latrines and drain and fill pits, and also clean the surroundings of schools, wells, etc. Sanitary Sub-Inspectors and vaccinator have to help the police patils in keeping the Registers of 'births and deaths'.

Sanitary squads.

Mukadam supervises and guides the squads in their work. In times of epidemics, the services of the squads are utilised for adopting anti-epidemic measures under the supervision and guidance of Sanitary Inspectors and Epidemic Medical Officer.

Leprosy Assistants.

They are attached to dispensary under the charge of Medical Officer. They have to carry out survey, education and treatment of leprosy patients in the area allotted.

Obligatory duties of the Local Bodie.

Public vaccination and execution of measures necessary for public health are obligatory duties of the municipalities in the urban areas and of the District Local Board in the rural areas.

Municipalities.

There are nine municipalities in the district. They are all District municipalities. Only four municipalities have qualified Sanitary Inspectors. Municipality receives Government subsidy equal to one-third of the pay of the qualified Sanitary Inspector. The Sanitary Inspectors bring to the notice of the Secretary of the municipality concerned the defects noticed by them during their round and the Secretary takes action according to the powers vested in him by the byelaws.

District Local Board.

There is no Health Officer or Sanitary Inspector in the employment of the District Local Board. A fixed contribution is received from the District Local Board on the Pay of Vaccinators and Peons. Contingent charges are borne by the Board. Rest of the expenditure is borne by Government. In villages having panchayats, sanitation is looked after by the panchayats. The sanitary arrangements made by the village panchayats are inspected by the officers of the Public Health Department and the defects noticed by them are brought to the notice of the President, District Local Board. The village panchayats are empowered to levy taxes so as to enable them to meet the expenses towards improvement of the village sanitation, purchase of medicines drugs and disinfectants, lighting, water-supply, etc. In villages which have no panchayats, the District Local Board deals directly with complaints relating to sanitary conditions, water-supply, etc.

Water-Supply.

Among municipal towns Murud, Panvel, Pen, Roha and Uran have piped water-supply.

School Health Services.

Sanitation of the school building and its environment, health education to the school pupils, medical examination at periodical intervals, correction of defects and improving the nutrition of school children are the duties of the Public Health Department.

Improvement of Vital statistics.

Every birth and death detected by the staff is checked up with the Police Patils' register. If registration is omitted it is duly made good. Returns from Police Patils are sent to Mamlatdars who consolidate and submit them to Director of Public Health. Poona.

The staff also ascertain the approximate causes of death from the symptoms which are checked by the District Health Officer from the synoptic key supplied to the staff.

In the municipal areas the municipal authorities concerned maintain registers of births and deaths.

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