Health Depatment eyes Sarangpur land for Mother & Child Centre

Tribune News Service

Naina Mishra

Chandigarh, February 4

The Director, Health Services, has requested the Administration to allot space at Sarangpur for the construction of a 500-bed Mother and Child Centre.

Having failed to start a dedicated Mother and Child Care Centre at the GMSH-16 for the past four years due to inadequate space, the UT Health Department had decided to shift the existing facilities, including gynaecology and paediatric units, to the Civil Hospital, Sector 22, to facilitate the construction of the new centre, but couldn’t due to heavy rush there.

For the 404-bed state-of-the-art centre, the building housing the gynaecology and paediatric facilities was to be raised to seven stories. The project is likely to cost more than ?100 crore.

However, now, the Health Department is mulling utilising a piece of land earmarked for a medical college at Sarangpur, for starting an exclusive 500-bed Mother and Child Centre. A meeting will be held between the Chief Architect and the Director Health Service next week so that the requirement of land can be better quantified by the architecture wing of the UT.

The Chief Architect had stated that they were waiting for a client approval for the drawings provided to the Health Department more than four years ago. Director Health Services Suman Singh said there was a dire need for having a Mother and Child Care Centre at the earliest, but they needed an alternative space to shift the existing facilities running in the GMSH-16 building for the construction period.

Another project of Mother and Child Care Centre at the GMCH-32 has been hanging fire for several years. The final drawings of the 348-bed mother and child care centre at the GMCH-32 have been approved.