CUTTACK: The Swami Vivekananda National Institute of Rehabilitation Training and Research (SVNIRTAR)’s satellite centre at Balangir is set to start full-fledged operations by mid-2017.
The centre, which has started offering primary rehabilitation services from a temporary facility at Balangir, will have its own building and campus spanning 3.15 acre. With the foundation stone laid by Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thawar Chand Gehlot recently, the construction work would be started by the CPWD soon.
The satellite centre would offer a whole gamut of rehabilitation services like physiotherapy, occupational therapy, psychological counselling, speech and hearing, prosthetics, aids and appliances. It would have 20 staff including doctors, physio-occupational therapists, counsellors, social workers, paramedics and other rehabilitation care workers. The process of recruitment of the staff has been started,” Director, NIRTAR Dr SP Das said.
The SVNIRTAR at Olatpur, about 30 km from here, is also set for a makeover by becoming a totally air-conditioned facility soon. Work on installation of centrally air-condition system at a cost of `64 lakh is on and will be completed in next couple of months. All wards, OPDs, waiting halls, diagnostic units and physiotherapy zones will be air-conditioned.
The premier rehabilitation centre’s expansion plans including addition of 100 more beds have also gained momentum. The CPWD will construct a new building to house new beds, taking the total bed strength to 200.
The move will come as a boon to patients as the institute now has a huge waiting list. With patient inflow to the tune of 150-200, the institute is forced to defer cases for months together.
“Our goal is to develop NIRTAR as a Centre of Excellence not providing all but top-standard services to the needy. The institute has added several advanced facilities like hydrotherapy, Gait analyser system and modular OT recently. A detailed development action plan will also be charted out to transform the institute as the top rehabilitation centre in the country,” Dr Das added.