In a piece of good news for those seeking better medical facilities, plans are afoot to upgrade the existing civil hospital of Roorkee to a multi-speciality hospital. If the plans fall in place at the state level the people of Haridwar and Roorkee may not have to run upto Meerut and other far-away higher medical centres.
As per the plans, the 100- bed facility shall be enhanced to 300 beds. Also specialists in all categories of ailments shall be deputed. Earlier, the mela hospital of Haridwar was planned to be made a multi-specialty facility, but chances for upgrading the civil hospital of Roorkee look brighter.
The 100-bed hospital known as civil hospital is the biggest hospital of Roorkee. On an average, 900 patients visit the out- patient department daily and some are admitted in the hospital as indoor patients. The present conditions of the hospital are dismal. Out of the 22 sanctioned positions of doctors, half of the doctors are working, out of whom five are working on contractual basis. The posts of the most sought -after physicians and gynecologists are vacant. Due to non-availability of EMO, the emergency medical services are being affected. The doctors are being forced to refer the cases of road accidents and crime related incidents to other hospitals endowed with better medical services.
Things are such that if the pathologist happens present the required testing equipment is not available. For instance, a radiologist is there, but he is not able to run the radiology- related testing machines. There is no one- to- one mapping with the person and his area of work.
To add icing to the cake, the trauma centre built with Rs 90 lakhs in the hospital premises seven years ago is almost defunct and not put to any use on account of scarcity of doctors. There are only doctors –a surgeon and an orthopedic surgeon- against the posts of 10 doctors. Due to the shortage of manpower, the trauma centre has been lying idle to the woe of the patients.
The people hope, the health department planning to upgrade the hospital to multi- specialty one would augur well for them.
Speaking to The Pioneer, chief medical superintendent, civil hospital Roorkee Dr Sanjay Kansal said, “A meeting was held with DG health in Dehradun on the issue of the up-gradation, something that would serve the people of the district greatly. Plans are also afoot to revamp the trauma centre. The decision would be taken at the state level. Either the mela hospital or the civil hospital would be upgraded, though the chances of the latter are brighter.”
