BENGALURU: A Paediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU) was inaugurated at K C General Hospital in Malleswaram on Wednesday. It was sponsored by a private player. Speaking at the inauguration, Minister for Health and Medical Education Dr K Sudhakar said plans are on the anvil to build a 100-bed Mother and Child wing at K C General Hospital, on the lines of Vani Vilas Hospital.
The minister, who expressed displeasure over the working of the hospital, said, “As announced in the budget, 500-bed super-speciality hospitals will be built in four parts of Bengaluru, under Public-Private Partnership (PPP) model. The proposals are expected this year and the sites will be identified soon.” The upgraded ICU and newly installed equipment was sponsored by Opentext and Nirman.
Sudhakar said pneumonia in children below five years of age has been a matter of concern. Halthcare staff and ASHA workers are being trained to check deaths due to pneumonia in kids, he added. An estimated 1.5 lakh children below the age of five years have been dying due to pneumonia, which accounts for 28 of 1,000 newborns in Karnataka.
Sudhakar’s jibe at Narayan
Expressing unhappiness over the functioning of KC General hospital, Sudhakar said, “The hospital is in Malleswaram, the heart of the city. Patients should be provided homely treatment. Jayadeva and Vani Vilas Hospitals are providing better quality service than private hospitals, why isn’t it possible here?” He was quick to throw in Higher Education and IT/BT Minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan’s name, while indirectly asking leaders of the constituency to look into the functioning of the hospital. Malleswaram is represented by Dr CN Ashwath Narayan.