ICU promise for hill hospital

Additional chief secretary Samar Ghosh (in the fore) with other health officials at the Darjeeling hospital on Monday. Picture by Suman Tamang Darjeeling, Dec. 7: Darjeeling is set to get its first intensive care unit at the 76-year-old Eden Hospital, which is also the district hospital. Following a visit by senior health officials, including additional chief secretary Samar Ghosh and director of health services Aniruddha Kar to the hospital, the authorities announced that Rs 88 lakh would be sanctioned to set up the ICU and improve the services at the facility. “A sum of Rs 88 lakh has been sanctioned for the hospital to set up an ICU with central oxygen supply and also to start new paediatrics and female wards,” Ghosh said at the circuit house here later today. The sanctioned money is the first instalment of the project. More funds are likely to flow in after district officials review the progress of the work, Ghosh said without elaborating much on the total cost of the project. Doctors of the hospital have welcomed the decision to set up an ICU. “Till date, the hills do not have a proper ICU. Some private hospitals do claim that they have such a unit, but facilities are way below the mark,” said a doctor. An ICU should have a 24-hour cardio-monitor, pulse-oxymetre, centralised oxygen supply, syringe pump and ventilators among other equipment, the doctor added. The Rs 88 lakh is also expected to be used in repairing the hospital, which has made headlines for all the wrong reasons in the recent past. On December 2, relatives of a patient admitted to the hospital with liver problem complained that he had been put on an empty oxygen cylinder, prompting the authorities to order an inquiry. Even though Eden Hospital was reconstructed in 2002 for Rs 7 crore under the World Bank’s State Health Project, there were several instances of wear and tear like the falling off of the ceiling plaster (which happened because monkeys supposedly jumped around on the hospital roof), defunct lifts and cracks appearing on walls a year after it was built. The authorities, however, described them as mere “expansions cracks”. The residents of town are happy with the development. “Once the ICU comes up, it will be a huge relief for the local people. In an emergency situation, a person needing admission to ICU had to be taken all the way to North Bengal Medical College and Hospital or the big private nursing homes in Siliguri, a good three-hour drive. I only hope that the ICU is completed soon and with all the facilities promised,” said Rajesh Pandey, a lawyer in town.