Kerala: Is the Rs 60-crore Tata Trust COVID Hospital shutting down in Kasaragod?

Amid reports that the Tata Trust Hospital in Kasaragod’s Chattanchal is on the verge of closing owing to the government’s alleged unwillingness to spend more on its maintenance, Kerala Health Minister Veena George had recently said at the State Assembly that the government had no plans to shut down the hospital. Built at a time when the number of COVID-19 infections in the district was on a steady rise, the hospital currently has no staff or facilities to function as a full-fledged hospital. Local residents and politicians therefore fear that the hospital is heading towards being rendered useless, that too in a district like Kasaragod, which famously lacks accessible healthcare provisions.

“Around 200 staff who were deployed here during the peak of the pandemic were transferred. Even though two of the staff still remain, there are no treatments happening at the hospital. The maintenance charges of the hospital are very high and the department is not ready to spend on it now. Though the minister said in the Assembly that the building would be converted to a multi-speciality hospital, no plans or arrangements have been made yet,” an officer from the Health Department told TNM.

The hospital has 125 cabins which can accommodate over 500 patients in total. But according to area residents, the government hasn’t been able to utilise the hospital for the benefit of the region’s people. “A proper hospital has been a long pending need of the district. Now they are planning to shift all the equipment from the Tata Hospital. This building will be ruined and turn useless soon. Up to Rs 60 crore was spent to develop this place, and it had all the facilities required to be turned into a super speciality hospital. But the government is showing no interest,” said NA Nellikkunnu, Kasaragod MLA.

Activists seeking better healthcare facilities in Kasaragod district for endosulfan victims, who live with various physical and mental disabilities, had approached the Supreme Court asking to convert the hospital to a palliative care centre. But in a subsequent affidavit submitted to the SC in August, Chief Secretary VP Joy said that the hospital was being used as an isolation ward for suspected monkeypox and COVID-19 patients, in addition to aid the District Mental Health Programme. He had also stated that the hospital’s use for other purposes can only be considered after it is decommissioned as a COVID isolation facility. Now, even as the hospital heads towards a possible shutdown, the Health Department is yet to decide on the building’s potential as a palliative care centre.

The Tata Hospital was built using 128 shipping containers for Rs 60 crore, spread over 8,000 square feet. It was built by the Tata group at the peak of the pandemic, as part of its corporate social responsibility fund. The people of Kasaragod are often forced to turn to Kannur or Karnataka’s Mangalore for health-related matters.