Rs 100 crore super-specialty hospital in MGMGH may see light

The long-pending inauguration of Rs 100 crore-super specialty hospital inside Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital ( MGMGH) is likely to be held on Friday. However, the equipment worth Rs 45 crore is yet to arrive at the hospital. Officials, who confirmed the inauguration message, attributed the undue hurry to the fast-approaching elections and the model code of conduct that would come into effect soon after.

On Thursday evening, the building was illuminated and it seemed that all decks were cleared for the grand opening on Friday. However, the inauguration has not been officially announced. But, according to sources, the hospital administration has received communication from Chennai about the inauguration and it is expected to be held at around 12 noon. The chief minister is likely to inaugurate it through video-conferencing. "The building will be inaugurated on Friday not because we want to complete it before the birthday of the chief minister. We want to complete everything before the announcement of the Lok Sabha election," a source said.

But, the new super-specialty hospital, which is promoted on par with Madras Medical College hospital, will see the inauguration even before installing the medical equipment. The six-storey building has nine super specialty departments, namely orthopaedics, neuro surgery, neurology, nephrology, urology, cardiology, cardio thoracic and plastic surgery. When asked about the delay in installing the equipment, the dean Dr P Karkuzhali said the process is on to receive the medical equipments. The hospital administration had recently sent a revised proposal for Rs 45 crore for equipment alone. Meanwhile, the super specialty building needs around 80 doctors, hundreds of nurses and sanitary workers. However, the government was yet to sanction the procedure to fill up these posts.

Meanwhile, the construction work of the Rs 55 crore building was completed by January 31, 2014, which was well-ahead of its fixed deadline. A senior PWD engineer said the work was completed before the deadline because of free flow of funds for the project. Interestingly, this likely inauguration will coincide with MGMGH's mega medical camp, which is one of the 660 medical camps that have been organised to denote the chief minister's birthday that falls on February 24. The camp will be held from 8 am to 4 pm at Syed Murdoza government higher secondary school.