A super-specialty hospital sans equipment

Feb 22, 2014, 06.00AM IST TNN Times of India Trichy 



TRICHY: Finally, Trichy has got a super-specialty and trauma care centre to meet the growing medical needs of poor living in and around the district. But, the Rs 100-crore-premier hospital would just remain a building until it gets its 45crore worth medical equipment to run the show.

The hospital was declared open by the chief minister J Jayalalithaa from Chennai through video conferencing in the presence of staff, students, government chief whip R Manoharan, the district collector Jayashree Muralidharan at the hospital.

Talking to TOI during the inauguration, Dr MA Aleem, the vice-principal of the KAP Viswanatham government medical college, said, "This super-specialty hospital will be a boon for poor and downtrodden people in Trichy and its surrounding districts as the treatment provided here would be on par with AIIMS."

Though the hospital has been inaugurated well before the deadline, it cannot serve the needy in a full-fledged manner immediately. Besides the unavailability of the medical equipment, the new facility would need a lot of doctors, nurses and sanitary workers. Unfortunately, the government was yet release order for recruiting staff for the new facility. So, the hospital administration will have to face flak from the people and from the opposition.

The new block with 440 beds is expected to fulfill the growing needs for specialty treatment. All the floors of the building have been divided into various departments. The orthopaedics and radiodiagnosis ward is on the ground floor of the seven-storey block. While the first floor consists of cardiology and cardiothoracic surgery departments, the second will have neurology and neuro-surgery departments. The nephrology and urology departments will function from the third floor and paediatric surgery and plastic surgery will be on the fourth floor. The medical gastroenterology and surgical gastroenterology departments will operate on the fifth. The sixth floor is for medical oncology and surgical oncology departments. The new block will have eight operation theatres.

Dr Kanagasundaram, medical superintendent of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital (MGMGH) said they were planning to commence the treatment at the super-specialty hospital from Saturday. "The process is on to get the equipment at the earliest. Nevertheless, we are going to start the treatment at the super-specialty hospital from Saturday after shifting the casualty ward," he said.