16 yrs after sanction, district hosp’s spl wing to open in Apr

Ranchi: Sixteen years after its commission, the state-of-the-art eight-storey super-speciality wing of the Ranchi district hospital will become operational from April 1 after its inauguration by the district civil surgeon Dr Vinod Kumar on Tuesday.
Dr Kumar said, “The ground floor of the building will house the emergency wards and the OPDs of surgery, orthopaedic and medicine departments. The first floor will constitute the OPDs of gynaecology, ophthalmology, dermatology and the pathological lab. The above three floors will comprise the super-speciality wing while the top floors will house the state-of-the-art operation theatres. Experts from cardiology, haematology and genetics departments will offer consultations to patients on the premises from April 1.”
The facility was approved in 2007 and the construction work took five years to complete. However, the operation of the facility was delayed in 2012, citing various lacunae in its design and construction. In 2017, the state health department had set up a 120-bed maternity wing in a portion of the building following a direction from the Jharkhand high court. By then, the state government’s efforts to run the hospital with Medanta and other corporate hospital chains under the PPP mode failed. Originally pegged at Rs 143 crore, the super-speciality wing saw two project cost revisions before being inaugurated on Tuesday.
Health minister Banna Gupta, Ranchi MP Sanjay Seth, and Ranchi MLA CP Singh were reportedly invited but gave the programme a miss. While Gupta’s office did not give any reason behind his absence, Seth denied having received any invitation from the civil surgeon’s office. Meanwhile, Singh said, “I was invited by the Ranchi civil surgeon but could not attend the event as I had to go out of town for some personal work.”