For the first time in the State, exclusive 500-bed hospitals for rural children and women will come up at Salem and Madurai at a cost of Rs. 80 crore each.
Under the National Rural Health Mission, the State Health Society has been sanctioned Rs. 160 crore for establishing the state-of-art hospitals at Salem and Madurai. Children below the age of 12 and women from rural areas will be provided treatment in the hospital that has both outpatient and inpatient wards.
The new hospital at Salem is to come up on the campus of the Government Mohan Kumaramangalam Medical College Hospital. The construction area has been identified and work is expected to be taken up in three months and completed by 2013-end.
As many as 200 doctors, 100 staff nurses, 50 technicians, 100 workers and 50 maintenance staff will be recruited.
R. Vallinayagam, Dean of the hospital told The Hindu, that a team from the State Health Society visited Rajiv Gandhi Government Women and Children Hospital in Puducherry, where a similar project was under way. It decided to replicate it.