Capacity addition is under way in Pollachi, Valparai and Mettupalayam Government Hospitals (GHs) in the district at a total cost of Rs. 4.47 crore. These works are being taken up as part of a State-wide Rs. 260.31-crore project to strengthen GHs.
The three GHs are all set to significantly expand their capacity to treat pregnant women and new-born children besides mortuary capacity and also make their facilities friendly for the differently abled.
Pollachi GH
The Pollachi GH is expanding its Comprehensive Emergency Obstetric and Newborn Care (CEmONC) centre by constructing an additional floor at a cost of Rs.1.15 crore, which will result in a capacity addition of 40 beds.
They will be divided between immediate post-operative care and ICU patients
Hospital Superintendent S. Kannan told The Hindu that while the existing CEmONC centre had 24 beds, they treated at least 40 patients at any given time and attended to 200 deliveries a month.
Further, a two-storey building was also under construction at a cost of Rs. 44 lakh for treating out-patients.
The hospital treated nearly 1,800 out-patients every day.
The building under construction had separate rooms for surgery, paediatrics, ophthalmology and other departments, which was not the case in the existing one.
While the Pollachi GH was sanctioned four staff nurses to meet the capacity addition in CEmONC ICU besides an equal number in the CEmONC theatre, they were yet to be deployed.
Besides asking for expeditiously filling these posts, Dr. Kannan said that hospital had also sought 10 more staff nurses.
Mettupalayam GH
Nearly 130 years after it was constructed, the Mettupalayam GH is finally about to get a ramp, which will help in expeditious movement of patients in stretchers.
S. Seralathan, Chief Medical Officer, Mettupalayam GH, said that the hospital was also getting a separate building for maternity department, which will quadruple the hospital’s capacity.
While the existing block had just 10 beds, the new one will have 30 beds.
A new operation theatre is also coming up and the capacity of the New-Borns Stabilising Unit was also being doubled to 12.
The hospital treated around 1,200 out-patients a day.
It had around 100 deliveries a month.
Valparai GH
The Valparai GH is also set to get a new mortuary block with modern facilities. The mortuary is now in an old building with thatched roof and no basic amenities, and has space to perform just one post-mortem at a time and can store only three bodies.
M. Anandan, Chief Medical Officer, Valparai GH, said that the new block, constructed with Rs. 11 lakh funding, can accommodate three post-mortems simultaneously and store 10 bodies.
The hospital has sought a modern ice freezer to store the bodies.
It now stores the body parts in buckets filled with preservatives
