The Government Royapettah Hospital has lined up several proposals to upgrade many facilities and add new ones, including construction of two floors in its Accident and Trauma block.
The hospital, which is celebrating its centenary, has sought funds from the State government for some of the project, while a few are being funded with Central government assistance. The two floors would be exclusively for providing trauma care and increase the patient intake of the hospital.
A sum of Rs.4.35 crore has been sanctioned for construction of the two floors. A proposal for setting up a ‘Zero Delay Ward' has been forwarded to the Director of Medical Education. A new CT Scan has been procured to replace the 10-year-old machine. Resident Medical Officer A. Elango said the old machine had provided over one lakh scans.
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The casualty ward is under renovation and would be opened to public shortly. The State government had allocated Rs.1 crore for completing pending work in the new surgical block. According to hospital authorities, the new block would be opened after the local body elections.
The government is also likely to approve the upgradation of the lift in the Intensive Cardiac Care (ICC) block, situated behind the main building. The lift has been malfunctioning for over a year now and posing considerable problems to the patients and the hospital staff.
A report on the condition of the lifts in the hospital was sent to the Health Department on July 5 last year. As all of them are over 20 years old, they must be replaced, hospital authorities have mentioned in the report to the Health department. Since then, there have been several rounds of inspection by officials. The Public Works Department's electrical wing had provided an estimate of Rs.50 lakh for replacement/repair of the five lifts in the hospital, including the one in the ICC block.
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A hospital official said: “There were 17 workers in the electrical wing in 2004. Now we manage with seven employees and we must allocate them for various works.” According to him, improper handling had damaged the modern lift in the ICC block. “The lift attendants would place a stool to prevent the automatic doors from closing. This damaged the sensor system and despite repeated misuse we tried to repair it. It is dangerous to run the lift as it could result in fatalities,” he said.
According to him the government had sanctioned Rs.5 lakh to repair the lift. The hospital is awaiting the Government order to take up the repair work, he said.