More than three years after its inauguration, things are finally getting cleared on the associated hospital for the Government Doon Medical College (GDMC). The Chief Minister Trivendra Singh Rawat, while addressing the annual function of the GDMC on Friday, said that the associated hospital of the medical college would be shifted to the vegetable Mandi of Niranjanpur.
The CM said that it would reduce the distance between the academic block of the medical college and the associated hospital.
Inaugurated by former Chief Minister Harish Rawat in august 2016, the academic and administrative blocks of the hospital are located at Patel Nagar.
To fulfil the criteria of a 350-bed associated hospital, the State Government had transferred the erstwhile district hospitals, the Doon hospital and Doon female hospital to the medical college. The arrangement ensured that the medical college got the necessary permission of the Medical Council of India (MCI).
This arrangement however deprived Dehradun of its district hospitals.
Moreover, the distance between the academic building and the hospital is more than five kilometres which creates problems for the students and the faculty members.
Earlier, there was a plan to hand over a plot of land measuring about 150 Bighas near the medical college to develop its own associated hospital but it could not get materialised.
However, the Government is now heading in the direction of shifting the Niranjanpur vegetable Mandi to some other place and set up a medical college hospital there.
It is pertinent to mention here that to meet the norms of the MCI, the health department has spent a big amount in upgrading and setting up facilities at the existing GDMC hospital. Recently new OPD block of the hospital was inaugurated and construction work on the emergency, female hospital and other blocks is going on a fast pace.
In such a situation, the decision to construct an entirely new hospital conferring to the norms of the MCI would result in a strain on the monetary resources of the State Government.
As per the norms of the MCI, the medical college would have to continuously upgrade the facilities in the associated hospital of medical college to multispecialty centre with a capacity of 750 beds.