Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) invests in a better future of primary healthcare in Karnataka
Press Release
· TKM upgrades the Primary Healthcare Centre at Byramangala with state-of-the-art medical equipment and improved healthcare services benefitting over 20,000 patients
· TKM also installed an advanced Water purification unit offering clean drinking water to the local community at Byramangala and also cater to medical purposes
· The new Primary Healthcare Centre is now equipped with 26 diagnostic units essential to provide primary health care services like medical gas pipeline system, autoclave, OT table & OT lights, Ambu bag, nebulizers, ECG machine, etc.
In line with its mission to strengthen the healthcare infrastructure of the local communities, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, today, inaugurated the Primary Healthcare Centre (PHC) at Byramangala upgraded with state-of-the art medical equipment and advanced healthcare services to benefit the residents in the community of Byramangala. The refurbished PHC was inaugurated by Mr. A Manjunath, Hon’ble MLA, Magadi Constituency along with other senior Government officials and senior management from Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Mr. Masakazu Yoshimura, Managing Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor, Mr Shekar Viswanathan, Vice Chairman & Whole-time Director and Mr Naveen Soni, Vice President, Toyota Kirloskar Motor.
As part of the government-funded public health system, Primary Health Centre (PHC) are state-owned rural health care facilities in India. The PHC at Byramangala was built by the community in 1983, in Ramanagara Taluka, about 40 kms from the city of Bangalore and over 2 kms from the Toyota Kirloskar Motor plant at Bidadi. Since its inception, the Primary Health Centre at Byramangala has been offering healthcare services to residents from 4 Gram Panchayats and 30 villages. However, due to its dilapidated condition, the centre was under-utilized and was not able to provide the required facilities to the patients. The Primary Healthcare Centre at Byramangala caters to the health needs of 20000 rural population. Currently, the no. of outpatients are 50-60/ day; Delivery cases are 3-4 /month and Daycare 10-15/day. With the newly constructed upgraded facility 15% increase in the number of patients is expected at the center.
Toyota Kirloskar Motor took up this project, under its CSR initiative in 2018 and constructed 4908 sq. ft. of the building as per the guidelines specified by Indian Public Health Standards (IPHS), with an investment of over Rs. 35 million to upgrade the centre and equip it with the best healthcare facilities. This upgradation of the health centre will benefit a larger number of patients in the community and help them avail advanced healthcare facilities at affordable cost.
The company also installed an advanced water purification unit at the Healthcare Centre premises bringing clean drinking water to the community. The newly-installed water purification unit not only caters to the general public for domestic purposes, but also to the ailing patients whose water requirements are more specific to medical needs for healthy recovery and prevention of possible water borne diseases. With this initiative, Toyota has been able to effectively support the affordability of required quantity & quality of water by contributing towards reduction of 92% of the total cost for such water being sourced through other vendors. Toyota installed water purification unit has four differential dispensing modes to achieve right use of such economical water source ensuring no water loss, negative ion water for medical purposes and high standard water for domestic use.
Addressing the inaugural function, Mr. A Manjunath, Hon’ble MLA, Magadi Constituency says, “We are thankful to Toyota Kirloskar Motor for extending the support in addressing the gap of quality healthcare services in local community. The dedicated support from the team at TKM and their investment will help us cater to the healthcare requirements and build a sustainable community here. The private sector has emerged as a vibrant force in India’s healthcare industry, lending support in terms of providing quality healthcare infrastructure and skilled medical professionals.
We are happy that the community members of Byramangala and nearby region will be able to avail quality healthcare facilities, which will further help in reducing the health ailments in the region. The government authorities have been working tirelessly to ensure accessibility to quality healthcare systems across the region.”
Inaugurating the upgraded Primary Healthcare Centre, Mr. Masakazu Yoshimura, Managing Director, Toyota Kirloskar Motor said, “It is very rightly said that Good Health is true wealth. Accessibility to proper healthcare facilities and lack of basic primary healthcare infrastructure have been a challenge for the rural community in India. However, the condition is improving now with dedicated intervention from Government in improving public healthcare services. We are glad to have undertaken such initiative under CSR to reconstruct the Primary Healthcare Centre and install advanced water purification unit at Byramangala. This upgraded PHC will prove to be a benchmark for other PHC in local communities in rural Karnataka. We will continue to extend the necessary support to further enhance the healthcare infrastructure in villages. With this new PHC, we are confident that we will be able to offer advanced healthcare services to the more rural population at an affordable cost. We are indebted to all the community members for their support in this endeavor.”
As part of Toyota’s CSR intervention, so far, the company has installed a total of 37 water units since 2012 [one in Varanasi, one in Vaishali and remaining are spread across Bangalore, Mandya and Ramanagara dist.] catering to around 6000 beneficiaries per unit. Toyota has recently initiated school health programme to address the malnutrition, anemia and eye problems of government school children in Ramnagara district. In this project, TKM is aiming to cover 10,000 school children.