HYDERABAD: Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao on Tuesday laid the foundation stone for three new hospitals which will come under the ambit of the Telangana Institute of Medical Sciences.
Reiterating his commitment to the people, at the ceremony held at Kothapet in LB Nagar and Alwal, KCR said the decision to set up the hospitals was taken owing to the Hyderabad urban region population touching a whopping 1.64 crore.
"We are setting up new hospitals in the city, so people do not have to go to the same old hospitals and face difficulties. The same services with 16 specialties and 15 super specialties will be available in the four TIMS hospitals which will be set up in different corners of Hyderabad - Gachibowli, Sanathnagar, Alwal and LB Nagar. These will be as good as AIIMS where we provide services as good as corporate hospitals at costs borne by the government," said Rao.
Further, he emphasised how people from so many states and countries could use these facilities besides relish life in a peaceful city like Hyderabad which was bereft of any communal disharmony.
"There is a cancer spreading in the country that of engaging in cheap politics based on religion and caste. If you open the newspapers you would see how there is some news or the other of shops of people from one religion being targetted. We must think, as on date there are nearly 13 crore Indians working in other countries and if those countries decide to send them back, they too will lose their jobs," said KCR.
He further said, "As a senior politician I want to caution you to not let this cancer spread as India is a country of diverse religions, faiths and castes. If these kinds of violence took place in Hyderabad and Section 144 had to be imposed how could the city have prospered to the levels it has where people can eat what they like, speak what they want?" said Rao in reference to the recent issues that have cropped up in Karnataka.
ALSO READ | Power reforms just a ruse: KCR
The new hospitals will have 1000 beds each. The Chief Minister at the ceremony specifically also asked for Mother and Child hospitals to be attached alongside the main hospital so women can access dignified pregnancy services in different parts of the city. Apart from these, the TIMS campus which will be spread across 20-60 acres in different locations will have 200 faculty members and 500 resident doctors each. Each of them will be designed to have 26 Operation theatres, Cathlab and Dialysis Services, Radiation and Chemotherapy Services, CT Scan, MRI Services etc. Keeping in mind the needs of the post-pandemic era, 1000 oxygen beds including 300 ICU beds are also being provided.
"These services that are coming up today are only because of the leadership of CM K Chandrashekhar Rao because from 1947 to 2014 the state had only three medical colleges and handful of major hospitals which were inherited from Britishers and Nizams. Until the Telangana Rashtra Samithi government came, the health of the people of the state was not a priority for any government before," added Harish Rao, Health Minister at the ceremony.