BHUBANESWAR: Four district headquarters hospitals, starting with Puri, will very soon have Intensive Care Units (ICU) with a capacity varying from four to six beds.
Realising the importance of ICUs in the rural regions, the Health and Family Welfare Department has identified Puri, Balasore, Koraput and Angul districts to set up the facility.
“We are presently surveying the hospitals in these four districts and depending on their capacity, the number of beds will be assigned to the ICU,” announced Additional Director of Health Services Bipin Panigrahi. Capital Hospital’s ICU’s capacity will also be increased from five to 16 beds, he added. The work is likely to be completed within this fiscal, Panigrahi said.
Increasing the capacity of an ICU is a tough job and numerous criteria like distance between each bed, trained staff and much more need to kept in mind. “We are aiming to reach the 50-bed mark for Capital Hospital’s ICU, but that will take time,” said Capital Hospital’s Chief Medical Officer Dr. Sudarshan Das.
The hospital’s officials, dismissing the allegations that they were prioritising rich patients, showed that around 101 BPL card holders, 12 patients under the Janani Sishu Surakhya Karyakram (JSSK) and one freedom fighter were provided free treatment.
According to the hospital officials, a large number of BPL card holders were also given free treatment under the Odisha State Treatment Fund.
Anyone earning less than `40,000 in rural region and less than ` 60,000 in urban region can qualify for the scheme. The patients who do not have the BPL card can get an income certificate from the tahsildar declaring their income. But the catch in the scheme is that one patient can be treated for any ailment only once a year, under the scheme.
This will be a major trouble for patients undergoing dialysis where one sitting cannot cure the patient.
“We have placed a proposal with the Health Department to look into the matter and make necessary changes in the scheme,” said Das.
The Sick Newborn Care Unit (SNCU) will also be increasing eight beds from the existing 16 beds. The provision for construction of a new SNCU hospital has been approved and ` 20 lakh has been sanctioned. But the project is in a limbo.