KOCHI: The ambitious plan to upgrade the trauma care unit at the General Hospital here is caught in bureaucratic entanglements. Though a proposal in this regard was made more than two years ago, there is no clarity as to when the work on the unit will commence.
Nevertheless, officials of the National Health Mission (NHM) claimed that the project would no longer be delayed as the Coastal Area Development Corporation had been awarded the contract for civil, electrical, and air-conditioning works for ₹49 lakh.
Upgrading the facility at the General Hospital was, in fact, part of the State’s action plan for an organised trauma care approved by the Centre under the National Trauma and Burns Care Scheme.
The proposed unit is expected to cost ₹ 5.4 crore. Rs 1 crore was transferred as the first lot.
With the lapse of at least two years in executing the project, the chances of getting the promised funds look rather bleak.
Technical issues involved in the transfer of Central funds from the treasury to the NHM were earlier cited as the reason for the delay in the execution of the project.
For the record, the first allocation under the project had reached the treasury in December 2014. However, it was only recently that a technical snag was cleared.
The funds were aimed at upgrading trauma care units in Ernakulam, Alappuzha and Kannur to a Level-III centres.
Incidentally, the General Hospital authorities went ahead with the basic civil work for the trauma care unit utilising around ₹28 lakh released under the 12th Five Year Plan. Though the work commenced over a year ago expecting the next installment of ₹49 lakh and later ₹51 lakh from NHM, it failed to arrive.
The space allotted for the unit in the main block of the hospital is lying vacant. Because of the initial work taken up by the GH, the casualty unit was shifted to the nearby orthopaedic block.
Once the new facility is in place, the space for the trauma care unit is expected to go up from the current 1,000 sq.ft. to around 2,500 sq.ft. An ambulance bay is also expected to reach right in front of the trauma care centre.
The lack of a proper trauma care unit is a major woe in the public health sector in the district. The Government Medical College at Kalamassery is yet to have even a full-fledged emergency care centre.
