The government has long-term plans for the upgradation of public hospitals in the State and to raise them to the NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals and Health Providers) standards.
Minister for Medical Education K. Sudhakar said here on Saturday that the government wants to provide the best quality healthcare and every government hospital under medical college should have NABH standards.
Asked to elaborate on the plans, Mr. Sudhakar said this was only the beginning and the journey was long and there were immense challenges. “But that is my vision and dream and this would call for ramping up infrastructure and strengthen the healthcare system.”
The NABH provides a framework for improving the quality of hospitals with focus on quality of healthcare, leading to high standards and work culture.
Mr. Sudhakar said there have been no recruitments in government hospitals and medical colleges across the State for quite some time and had resulted in scarcity of staff. He would try to address the issue.
With regard to the K.R. Hospital in Mysuru, the Minister said it was an ‘ancient’ building and there were issues related to space and staff. Given the heritage structure, additional or new construction cannot take place. But once the superspecialty hospital was ready, the patient load on K.R. Hospital and Cheluvamba Hospital would decrease. The superspeciality hospital will have some beds for paediatrics as well along with ICU and NICU facilities.
However, the Minister said he was not satisfied with the current state of the trauma care centre.
Mr. Sudhakar, who went on an inspection spree of government hospitals in the city, visited the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Science and Research to apprise himself of the infrastructure.
He was taken around the hospital by Director C.N. Manjunath and other staff who informed the Minister that the institute was handling around 500 patients daily. The doctors were performing cardiac intervention surgeries on about 20 to 30 patients every day.
Complaints
He later visited the PKTB sanatorium and the Cheluvamba Hospital where attendants of the patients poured out their woes, complaining about lack of facilities and how they were forced to sleep in the open grounds on the hospital premises.
