Saturday, July 5, 2014

20 More DHHs to Get ICU Facility

The New Indian Express (Bhubaneswar), July 5, 2014
BHUBANESWAR: In a major boost to provisioning critical care facilities at the grassroots, the State Government is set to establish ICUs in 20 district headquarters hospitals (DHHs) by 2015-16.
While 13 districts have already been approved for the ICU projects and are in different stages of implementation, seven more districts are set to be included in the list this year. The DHHs include Khurda, Sambalpur, Kandhamal, Nayagarh, Jharsuguda and RGH Rourkela. The ICUs would be established under both Central and State government schemes, Health Secretary PK Mohapatra said.
The critical care units have already been made operational at Malkangiri, Nabarangpur, Balangir, Puri, Capital Hospital at Bhubaneswar and Koraput which joined the bandwagon on Friday. The rest seven DHHs of Nuapada, Balasore, Mayurbhanj, Kalahandi, Jajpur, Bargarh and Angul will be equipped within next two months, sources said.
The ICUs with six beds and other advance critical support equipment, including two ventilators, are being set up at a cost of `1 crore each. They will be manned by three doctors, 10 nurses and paramedical staff who have received extensive training in critical care at the Apollo Hospitals,
Bhubaneswar.
The proposal for creation of posts for the seven new DHHs is under consideration of the Government. Work will start as soon as the approval from the Finance Department is received. “However, there is a need to create a pool of ICU trained personnel in the State so as to engage them in critical care units only. If the doctors drawn from the districts, who have been trained in intensive care, are transferred and deployed in other specialisations, the whole exercise will be rendered futile,” State nodal officer on National Programme for Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS) and National Programme for Healthcare of Elderly (NPHE) Dr PKB Patnaik said.
Meanwhile, Koraput became the fourth district in the State to make the integrated Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD) complex and services functional. The complex was inaugurated by Koraput Collector Yamini Sarangi.
The NCD complex houses all programme components like six-bed ICU, 10-bed Geriatric Ward, four-bed Daycare Chemotherapy Unit, lab and Physiotherapy Unit. It has been constructed at a cost of `2.5 crore.
Dr Patnaik said work at the remaining one district in the first phase NPCDCS Nuapada is almost over and will be operational soon.

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