The Neighbourhood Health Centres- ABout Clinics( Health care)

Clinics
The Neighbourhood Health Centres


Clinics are always close and convenient to access. While comparing to the highly hierarchical hospitals with multiple layers of administration, this neighbourhood health centres are a welcome relief.

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The word ‘clinic’, as it is understood, doesn’t bring a big massive institution into the mind. But that doesn’t mean that clinics are really small. Some of the clinics in Kerala are rich in facilities and strong in attendant hi-tech backing up service.

The advantages of clinics are numerous. Looking from a patient’s perspective, it is single layered service option as against the hassling and irritating hierarchical arrangement in a traditional hospital. And for treatments like eye care and dental care, clinics are the best choices. A clinic doesn’t need huge space. Most of the time, clinics come close to where one resides. The personalised attention is the part and parcel of a treatment in clinic and it comes without asking.

Generally, it is a practising doctor or a group of practising doctors who own clinics. Since they practise in their own institution, doctors enjoy a level of openness and autonomy that is not associated with a hospital. Here in clinics, a doctor is fully in command. He or she can take decisions independently. Moreover clinics are free from professional turf rivalry that is seen in hospitals between doctors and departments.
In a clinic, individualised attention and care is given to the patient. A patient need not deal or negotiate with multiple layers of the administration as in a hospital. It is a simple entry into the doctor’s room. At times doctor recalls and remember the last visit. Since clinics are neighbourhood facilities, the visitor and doctor often falls in the same community or locality. That lends confidence to the patient.

It is widely noticed that for eye & dental care, clinics are very popular. In these departments of medicine, individual skill and expertise are very important. Doctors can develop infrastructure for these departments comparatively easy. That may be a reason for the proliferation of clinics in these segments.

Specialist care and systems can be developed in a clinic. The scope for experimentation for a creative doctor is high. In a clinic, doctors can easily enter into collaboration with outside agencies and suppliers of solutions, equipments and services. Thus clinics offer wonderful opportunities for doctor.

In a clinic, doctor himself fixes the charges for treatment. The rent and physical infrastructure cost component, comes less for a clinic. This enables clinics to frame a more reasonable structure of service charges. The increasing cost of equipments that needs updating throws a challenging situation to many clinics. But many conscientious doctors do the balancing act in fiscal management by strenuously adopting new and novel means to make sure that their valuable clients are not charged beyond the means.