Kerala - Thiruvananthapuram   

SAT Hospital gets major facelift

Staff Reporter

Renovation work estimated at Rs.1 crore in progress

SPORTING A NEW LOOK: The renovated ward at Sree Avittam Tirunal Hospital in the city. Photo: C. Ratheesh Kumar

Thiruvananthapuram: Sree Avittam Tirunal (SAT) Hospital is getting a major facelift with the execution of renovation work estimated at nearly Rs. 1 crore.

The work on the Rs.3 crore-five storeyed Golden Jubilee block of the hospital, the foundation for which had been laid in June last year, has commenced. This apart, some long-standing needs of the existing hospital building, including the modernisation of the labour rooms and the major operation theatre, are also being met this time.

One of the major works is the installation of two new lifts in the hospital at Rs.30 lakhs. The hospital, at present, has only one lift, while the other one, connecting the paediatric operation theatre and wards, has been non-functional for several years.

In the absence of the lift, both patients as well as the hospital staff have had to put up with gruelling situations during paediatric or accident emergencies, when children had to be carried manually up to the floors above.

Work on the modernisation of labour rooms and the addition of another operation theatre, near the labour room, is on in full swing.

As many as 20,000 deliveries take place in SAT Hospital every year, of which 29 per cent are Caesarean sections. Owing to overcrowding, waiting list and delays in performing C-sections had become a major headache for the hospital authorities. The additional facilities are expected to help ease this situation.

All the laboratories in the hospital are being overhauled. The haematology laboratory, which performs several key blood-related investigations, will get new equipment. All the labs in the building, including microbiology and bio-chemistry labs, are being brought together in a single complex so that patients can have easy access to these.

A new, extended car park, lecture halls and postgraduates' room and an improved out patients' block and canteen are also being added on.

The old building, which used to house the Superintendent's office, has been demolished to make way for the Golden Jubilee block. Three floors will be built in the first phase of construction of the block for SAT Hospital, which will have pay wards, paediatric cardiology and neurology wings, labour rooms and separate ICUs for women and children.

The hospital currently has 1,035 beds, while the average number of inpatients any time is over 1,200. On an average, it caters to some 1.5 lakh outpatients and 45,000 inpatients every year. Over 50,000 emergency surgeries and as many as 6,000 major surgeries were performed in 2003.

Computerisation

The hospital has also approached the Information Kerala Mission to help computerise the hospital, including the installation of a hospital information system, for better patient management. The project will have the technical assistance of National Informatics Centre.

The lack of a proper public information system has been one of the major shortfalls at SAT hospital.

As entry to the hospital is restricted for men, altercations between visitors and security staff are a regular affair here. The hospital authorities plan to install a touch screen at the entrance so that the public can get immediate details about the patient they are visiting.

"A proper public information system, a streamlined system for issuing security passes to visitors and a hospital records system are essential for us, for which proposals have been submitted," said K. Rajmohan, SAT superintendent.

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