Work on hospital extension building at snail's pace in Ambala

Nitish Sharma

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Ambala, January 15

The construction work of the extension building at Civil Hospital, Ambala Cantonment, is going on at a slow pace. The project was started in August 2019 and was to be completed in two years but even after missing its deadline nearly five months ago, the project is still around 50 per cent complete.

Will help decongest premises

With the construction of the additional building, we will be able to decongest the hospital. It will be beneficial for the staff and the patients if the additional building with the required changes gets ready at the earliest. Vinay Goel, deputy medical superintendent-cum-nodal officer for construction

June deadline

Nearly 50 per cent work has been completed and the time extension till June has been recommended. The contractor has been directed to complete the work by June. Sumit Dalal, sub-divisional officer PWD (b&r)

The extension building is being constructed at a cost of Rs 77.44 crore.

The Health Department had planned to shift at least 100 beds, a couple of OPDs, besides offices in the extension building due to space crunch.

An official said, “In the existing buildings, only the patient care services were planned while the other essential requirements remained neglected due to space crunch. There is no proper office space for officials, counselling room, physiotherapy department, and drug store to name a few. Makeshift arrangements have been made to tackle the situation. The paediatrics and gynaecology OPDs are being run in the IPD block of the hospital. Even a costly lithotripsy machine is being run from a makeshift room. Currently, there is a makeshift ICU here and there is a need to set up a proper ICU for the best care of patients.”

“Initially, as per the project, an eight-storey building, including two basements, was to be constructed but later changing its design, the top two floors were merged. We can still make the best use of the space available by making some changes in the design of the under-construction building as per the requirement of the hospital. The Covid pandemic has already arrived as a real-time rehearsal, and we must be ready to tackle such pandemics in future also for which we have to ensure adequate space to handle patients and also to control the spread of infections”, he added.

The Deputy Medical Superintendent-cum-Nodal Officer for construction, Vinay Goel, said, “It is a 200-bedded hospital but due to space crunch an additional building was sanctioned and it is under construction. There are some space-related issues that we have been facing in the existing buildings. With the construction of the additional building, we will be able to decongest the hospital. It will be beneficial for the staff and the patients if the additional building with the required changes gets ready at the earliest.”