Tanda super-specialty hospital patient of apathy

Ashok Raina

KANGRA, March 1

A year after it was inaugurated, the Rs 150-crore super specialty hospital at Tanda is still not fully operational. The hospital continues to remain un-operational for want of medical equipment which is yet to be purchased.

Union Minister for Health and Family Welfare Ghulam Nabi Azad, on November 24, 2010, had laid its foundation stone and on March 1, 2014, the hospital was inaugurated by GS Bali, Transport Minister, on behalf of Azad, with an official announcement that within one year the hospital would be fully functional.

Specialised treatment in radio oncology, cardiology, cardio vascular thoraxic surgery, nephrology, gastroenterology, neurology, urology and neuro surgery departments was promised but it did not happen.

Kaul Singh Thakur, Health Minister, said super specialists had joined the various departments and the equipment and machinery was to be purchased by the Health and Family Welfare Department, Government of India, which had failed to do so.

He said despite repeated requests to the Government of India the medical equipment and machinery was not purchased till date. He would now personally request the Union Health Minister to bail the project out and help the people of the state.

It was learnt that due to some procedural problem, delay in the procurement of the sophisticated equipment, most of which is to be imported, had left the hospital in lurch.

The cost estimation was not finalised and purchases did not materialise, leaving the project hanging fire.

For want of necessary equipment, a cardio thoraxic surgeon resigned recently. The operation theatres were yet to get ready for want of equipment. Skeletal OPD services in six departments were functioning which seemed to be an eye wash.

Besides people of the merged Himachal, residents of border areas of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir have pinned their hopes on this institution.