Work on city’s largest trauma care centre begins, to open in 18 months
Large government hospitals across the country are constructed at ₹1 crore per bed. This hospital should have cost ₹362 crore, but it is being done in just ₹71 crore. SATYENDAR JAIN, health minister
NEWDELHI:THE work on a 362-bed trauma centre along with Sanjay Gandhi hospital in Mongolpuri was flagged off with the laying of the foundation stone by Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday. The construction of the ₹71-crore hospital block will be completed within 18 months, according to the government.
Once completed, it will become the largest trauma centre in the city. Currently, the hospitals specialising in emergency and polytrauma care in Delhi are the 182bed Jai Prakash Narayan Apex Trauma Centre run by AIIMS and the 71-bed Sushruta Trauma Centre run by Delhi government.
“This will be the biggest trauma care centre in Delhi and will have all modern amenities. It will be fully air-conditioned. There will be gas-pipelines (which deliver oxygen etc to ventilators and other medical device) on all beds. The trauma centre will have 6 operation theatres. Over 50% of the beds would be reserved for only emergency trauma and ICU facilities, which is what most people coming here would need,” said Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain.
To compare, of the 152 beds at AIIMS trauma centre 30 beds are reserved for emergency cases and 26 for ICU patients, which is 36.8% of the total bed strength. The government said ₹290 crore is being saved on the project.
“Ordinarily, large government hospitals across the country are constructed at a cost of ₹1 crore per bed. This hospital should have cost ₹362 crore, but it is being done in just ₹71 crore. This has been made possible because Delhi has an honest and efficient government that saves peoples’ tax money and provides the best services to all our people,” said CM Arvind Kejriwal at the ceremony.
The upcoming trauma care block is a part of the government’s plan to add new blocks and restructure the 17 existing hospitals to add nearly 9,000 beds. The 38 hospitals run by the Delhi government have 11,353 beds.
Of the projects planned, work has started on four and the deadline for the remodelling of Deep Chand Bandhu hospital to add 281 beds is set for August 2020. The government also plans to add over 2,500 beds in three new hospitals in Ambedkar Nagar, Dwarka, and Burari. The last of the three hospitals are expected to come up by March 2020.
The government had promised to double the bed strength in government-run hospitals.
“Delhi government is working at an unprecedented speed on various projects, like no other government not just in India but the world. We will add 2.8 lakh CCTV cameras, 21,000 classrooms in our schools, hundreds of mohalla clinics, over two lakh lights. Just to compare Mumbai has just 1.5 lakh street lights, we are adding two lakh more,” said Jain at the ceremony.
Kejriwal said that apart from the 200 mohalla clinics running, 200 more will be inaugurated in around a week, and by November or December Delhi will have a total of 700 to 800 mohalla clinics.