Team inspects site for new block

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 09, 2010


Team inspects site for new block

Special Correspondent

TIRUCHI: A comprehensive emergency obstetrics and neonatal care centre block will be constructed at an estimated cost of Rs. 9 crore with World Bank assistance at the Annal Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital here.
A three-member World Bank team from New Delhi led by Preeti Kudesia and Sundararajan S. Gopalan, Senior Health Specialists and Sangeeta Pinto, Operations Analyst, which visited the site of the proposed block at the Hospital on Tuesday, expressed satisfaction about the site.
Talking to the media persons, Dr. Preeti Kudesia said that the team members would discuss about the proposed project with the Tamil Nadu Health Secretary and other officials at Chennai in a day or two. The proposed block was expected to be constructed in a span of two years even though the project period would be three years, she said.
She pointed out that the World Bank was supporting the Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project. It provided soft loan to the Tamil Nadu Government for implementing various health projects. The World Bank had provided nearly 90 million US dollars for health care projects in 270 secondary level hospitals in the last five years and planned to provide a total assistance of 117 million US dollars for various health care projects in the next three years in Tamil Nadu.
Dr. Kudesia said that her team had earlier visited several hospitals including Namakkal, Salem and Dharmapuri districts in the last few days and pointed out that the team had visited the first medical college hospital only in Tiruchi.
Dr. M. A. Aleem, Dean (in-charge) of Annal Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital, took the World Bank team to the maternity ward and explained to them the various developments being carried out in the hospital. He also showed the project plan to the team. V. Sukumar, expert advisor, Tamil Nadu Health Systems Project, explained about the proposed site for constructing the block.