Noida: Taps stolen from hospital building, water flows into ward

NOIDA: Bathroom fittings, including taps, were stolen from one of the washrooms at the new District Hospital building on Thursday, just three days after all departments were shifted to the Sector 39 address.
The theft came to the notice of officials when the water started gushing out of the pipes, flooded the bathroom on the fourth floor of the main building and entered one of the wards.
As of now, the new hospital building has only one guard on each floor. Officials said the number of guards would be increased eventually.
Dr Rajendra Kumar, the chief medical superintendent, said the washrooms could not be closed for the convenience of both patients and outsiders.
Every day, some 1,500 patients visit the OPD at the new building, while there are 30-40 admissions on an average.
Officials said that since the department were shifted to the Sector 39 building only a few days ago, it would take some time to install CCTV cameras on the whole campus. The lack of cameras, they said, allowed thieves a free run.
On Wednesday, thieves decamped with iron grilles installed to cover drains on the Child PGI campus in Sector 30, which housed the District Hospital earlier.
The new building will have space for additional departments, such as the burn ward, trauma centre, oxygen beds, skin clinics, cancer OPD and MRI.
The 240-bed hospital has facilities like pathology, radiology, CT scan, dialysis and so on.
These apart, additional departments, such as the anti-rabies vaccine centre, surgery room and radiology, have also been set up at the new building along with a 70-bed IPD.
While the registration counter and OPDs are on the first floor, the admin department is on the seventh floor and the CMO’s office on the eighth. Constructed in 2019, the Sector 39 building spans across an area of 14,000sqm and has a capacity of 240 beds, including 30 reserved for high trauma care.
When the Covid pandemic struck the next year, it was turned into a dedicated facility for isolating patients testing positive. Since the hospital hardly had any crowd then, the five lifts were used to transfer the patients to different wards.
But when Covid numbers started to decline, the authorities last year decided to shift all the departments to the new facility.
With 500-600 people visiting daily, the five lifts in the Sector 39 building are now busy most of the time. Patients on wheelchairs and stretchers are often seen waiting for their turn to access the lift exclusively for them.