One must know his limitations before giving out a promise.

I have worked at the Ispat General Hospital (IGH) in Rourkela for three decades and have experienced its phenomenal growth in the standard of teaching, research, investigation facilities and modern modalities of treatment over the years.

Basically, the IGH was meant for the Rourkela Steel Plant employees and their dependents as per the SAIl (Steel Authority of India) criteria. Our Prime Minister promised about making the IGH a super-speciality hospital without any knowledge about the hospital’s administration and a good feedback from the doctors.

A hospital is made up of doctors, nurses and paramedical staffs. Modern equipments do not make a building a hospital. The IGH is now running with skeletal staffs; there are no specialists in most of the departments. In last ten years, around thirty doctors and more than fifty nurses have retired, but the posts are not being filled up.  No outsiders are willing to join the hospital. The SAIl does not like to spend on medical facilities because the higher authorities perhaps think the SAIl is for making steel; and sick people must take VR (voluntary retirement) and only a few doctors are required for referring patients outside.

The PM should have asked any of the retired senior doctors about all this before promising such a dream project. “Rourkela is a dead city”, that's what present Rourkela MlA Dilip Ray had once said at a Press meet a few decades back.

There is no floating population at Rourkela to sustain a multi-speciality hospital. Who would pay the salary of super-specialistsIJ In the USA every year, a few super-speciality hospitals get closed due to shortage of manpower and financial crunch.  The NIT Rourkela is going to have a super-speciality hospital soon; hence, the IGH can wait. Being a PM, Modi should have tried to have some idea about the realities before giving a promise.

(The writer, a doctor, is a former Joint Director, SAIl)