Calangute: Candolim primary health centre, facing repeated delays, is expected to start operating partially from its new Rs 16.4 crore building in about a month,Calangute MLA and Goa Infrastructure Development Corporation chairperson Michael Lobo said the ground floor would be ready within a month, allowing the centre to shift to the new premises. The old primary health centre building would then be demolished to create a parking area.A health services department official said the first floor would be completed in another year and a half. Lobo said facilities, including an X-ray machine and laboratory would be ready in about 15 months.The centre will be upgraded to a community health centre after it moves into the new building. The ground-plus-one-floor hospital will have outpatient department facilities, male and female wards, a casualty department, laboratory and X-ray room.Chief minister Pramod Sawant laid the foundation stone for the new wing in Feb 2020. Sawant had spent a year practising as an ayurvedic doctor at Candolim primary health centre when he began working. The project was scheduled for completion within two years, in 2022, but was delayed because of the pandemic.Locals and tourism stakeholders have long demanded a full-fledged hospital with emergency trauma facilities because of the large number of accidents in the Calangute-Candolim beach belt. In the absence of an X-ray machine and operation theatre, injured people have had to be taken to Goa Medical College.
