The city’s new public healthcare institutions – trauma care centre and super speciality hospital – remain unavailable for patients for want of doctors since their inception many years ago
The city’s new public healthcare institutions – trauma care centre and super speciality hospital – remain unavailable for patients for want of doctors since their inception many years ago
Will Minister for Health and Family Welfare and Medical Education K. Sudhakar’s promise of operationalising Mysuru’s trauma care centre and the super speciality hospital be fulfilled?
The Minister said on Friday that he has initiated the process of appointing doctors and key staff to both the hospitals besides procuring equipment and added that everything would be in place hopefully in the next one or two months.
He was convinced that the patient load and pressure on the K.R. Hospital, attached to the Mysore Medical College and Research Institute (MMCRI), would be eased if the trauma care centre and the super speciality hospitals become fully functional.
But, the big question is – will they become serviceable as being assured by the Minister by the year-end?
When the hospitals could not be made functional over the last few years despite several assurances by the government, is it possible to change their fate in a short span of time. Or is it another assertion?
It’s been several years since the city’s new public healthcare facilities were inaugurated but have remained unutilised and unavailable to the public. The reason – non-availability of doctors, nursing staff and equipment.
The trauma care centre, the super-speciality hospital and the district hospital, all on the KRS Road on the premises of PKTB Sanatorium, have remained a non-starter – they were not being used for the purpose for which they were built.
In 2020 and 2021, the hospitals were temporarily used for treating COVID-19 patients. They came in very handy to combat the pandemic. but the hospitals are once again lying unused with COVID-19 cases under control. The lack of will to appoint doctors, and other necessary staff is being blamed for the facilities, each of them built by spending crores of rupees, remaining idle for so long.
The Minister cited technical reasons for the delay in functionalising the institutions. The hurdles have been cleared and the appointments and procurement of equipment will happen on a fast-track basis with all formalities under progress, Dr Sudhakar said, while replying to a volley of questions on the future of these hospitals.
When the hospitals were approved, no provision was made for the staff. The appointments have been expedited now to ensure they start providing services to the public, according to the Minister.
The purpose for which the facilities were built is not being served as years are passing and the facilities have continued to remain unavailable to the public. Meanwhile, experts in the healthcare sector have been recommending that provision has to be made for appointing doctors and other staff along with the allocation for the construction of building and equipment whenever a new hospital or a healthcare facility is approved, The Cabinet has to give approval for both the building and the staff so that there won’t be any delay in making facilities available to the public.
