Bangalore: Work on the Rs. 120-crore project to upgrade Bangalore Medical College (BMC) and the hospitals attached to it, to the standard of All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, will start by mid-March.

The Bangalore Medical College was recently granted autonomous status by the State Government.

Under this Union Government project, facilities at the hospitals affiliated to BMC — Victoria Hospital, Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Minto Ophthalmic Hospital and Research Institute, Vani Vilas Hospital and SDS Tuberculosis and Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases — will be improved. A new super-speciality block of six floors will come up at the Victoria Hospital while all the hospitals will get state-of-the-art equipment.

The Union Government is contributing Rs.100 crore for upgrading the college/hospital while the State Government will release Rs. 20 crore. Roughly, Rs. 60 crore each has been earmarked for civil works and medical equipment. Hospital authorities said that a Central team along with a Delhi-based architect, who has been chosen by the Union Government to design the super-specialty block, inspected the hospital premises two weeks ago.

"The final design of the super-speciality block has been sent to the Union Health Ministry for approval. The process for procurement of equipment is on," Ramananda Shetty, Director for Medical Education told The Hindu .

Equipment

The State Government will acquire equipment estimated at less than Rs. 10 lakh while the more expensive equipment, including CT Scan and MRI, will be procured by the Union Government. All these will be installed in a few months, Dr. Shetty said.

He added that a nursing college and hostel would also come up on the hospital premises. The old nurses quarters, which was housed in a dilapidated building, and the school nursing and nurses' hostel will be demolished to make way for construction of the new block and the nursing college and hostel.

K.V. Ashok Kumar, Medical Superintendent of Victoria Hospital, said equipment that cost less than Rs. 30 lakh would be installed in the hospital by March 31. The project is likely to be completed in 18 months.

"There is also provision for increasing the number of postgraduate and super-specialty medical seats in the Bangalore Medical College as part of this project," Dr. Ashok Kumar said.

In April last, the Union Government chose Bangalore Medical College and its affiliated hospitals for this grant so that the college could be upgraded to the standard maintained by AIIMS. The project aims at improving educational and research activities and also the patient care at hospitals affiliated to the medical college.

In the last six months, Central teams visited the college and affiliated hospitals many times before giving the final approval at the end of last year.

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