COIMBATORE: The district headquarters hospital at Pollachi has been allocated Rs 1.47 crore for setting up a laundry for sterilising clothes and equipment used in surgical procedures and other key procedures.
The allocation for the Central Sterile Services Department (CSSD) laundry was made by the State Health and Family Welfare Department as a part of the TN Health System Reform Programme.
"The state-empowered committee of the health department has approved Rs 1.41 cr to set up a fully operational CSSD laundry and the execution would be carried out through the Tamil Nadu Medical Services Corporation Limited. The fund was approved for allocation in the 2024-25 financial years and expected to begin work very soon," said sources.
There was a demand for setting up a CSSD laundry at the hospital for more than a decade. (In major hospitals the CSSD delivers sterile supplies of surgical laundry and equipment.)
The hospital now relies on manual laundry and a functional autoclave for the sterilisation process, which makes it difficult for sterilisation in each area and regular washing of the operation theatre and ward by manually washing, said sources.
The Pollachi Government Hospital, which was upgraded as the district headquarters hospital in 2010, serves a population of around seven lakh in Pollachi, Valparai (in Coimbatore district) and Udumalpet (in Tiruppur district).
The five functional operation theatres at the hospital hold 500 major surgeries and 1,200 minor surgeries a month.