The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Stanley Medical College hostels’ renovation work begins

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Oct 02, 2007
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Stanley Medical College hostels’ renovation work begins

R. Sujatha

Dilapidated hostel blocks will be rebuilt

— Photo: S.S. Kumar

Ready for revamp: Renovation work will soon be undertaken at hostel blocks of the Government Stanley Medical College.

CHENNAI: Work to renovate the students’ hostels at Government Stanley Medical College in Royapuram has begun.

This follows the death of a house surgeon and the hospitalisation of 18 other medicos and nursing students recently for a suspected viral infection.

At the height of the episode, Health Minister K.K.S.S.R. Ramachandran had announced that the hostels, housing around 500 students, would be renovated for the time being. In the long run, dilapidated hostel blocks would be rebuilt.

On Monday, one of the seven blocks got a new coat of paint, while the dilapidated toilets on the ground floor of another block were being dismantled.

Workers engaged by the Public Works Department cleared overgrown bushes in the hostel area, where some of the old buildings have developed cracks.

Some students note that the proposal to demolish the century-old hostel buildings was mooted a decade ago. Every year, the students’ council would bring it to the notice of the college and hospital authorities.

In the damaged blocks, the top floor has been declared unfit for use. Students say they have to depend on the bathrooms and toilets in the relatively better blocks.

The kitchen at the house surgeons quarters, above the hospital’s casualty ward, lacks modern cooking equipment. Senior doctors say it is important to relay the drainage system, as it has often been repaired, but with little success.

When contacted, hospital dean Mythili Bhaskaran said there were proposals to build additional floors on the existing buildings to accommodate students until the new blocks were ready. Subsequently, the old blocks and the mess would be replaced by new structures, she said.

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