Chest Hospital in Vikarabad Draws Flak

Hyderabad: The move to shift Erragadda chest hospital to TB Sanatorium in Vikarabad of Ranga Reddy district has come in for a sharp criticism from the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Telangana Pradesh Congress Committee (TPCC) vice-president Mohammed Ali Shabbir condemned the decision and accused the Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao of acting like a monarch. He said the decision would affect thousands of patients and hundreds of employees. He added the 670-bedded hospital gets an inflow of nearly 200 patients suffering from breathing or respiratory problems and an equal number of HIV patients with TB co-infection on daily basis. It also houses a 100-bedded facility for HIV patients, which was one of its kind in India. He said patients at various stages of tuberculosis, asthma, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), pneumonia, lung cancer, swine flu (H1N1) and also HIV would face lot of inconvenience if the hospital was shifted.

“How can the government expect patients suffering from serious respiratory disorders to travel 70 km to get the treatment?" he asked. BJP leader Nagam Janardhan Reddy also opposed the move. He said most of the people using the services of Erragadda hospital were poor and it appears KCR wants to punish them.

He said the college was attached to Osmania Medical College and would lose 11 post-graduate seats in Pulmonology, which were recently sanctioned by the Medical Council of India (MCI) since the teaching hospital should be located within 8 km of the medical college.

Nagam and Shabbir demanded the State government to modify the GO Rt No 61 and drop the proposal of shifting the hospital. However, they said the administrative sanction of Rs 7.70 crore for repairs and modernisation of TB Sanatorium at Vikarabad should be honoured.

Docs hail decision
Hyderabad: Amidst growing opposition to the proposal of the Telangana government to shift chest hospital to Vikarabad, the Telangana Government Doctors Association chairman Veeresham and chest hospital president Ravinder Goud and others led by Health Minister C Lakshma Reddy met Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and welcomed his decision to shift the hospital.

During the meeting, they also urged KCR to fill vacant posts in the department and provide employment to the eligible apart from finding solution to their long-pending demands. Later, the Chief Minister said his government has allocated sizeable funds to hospitals, including Osmania, Gandhi and others for development on par with private ones.

“The government wants to encourage doctors and staff working in rural areas with special incentives and subsidies, and consider offering more HRA,” he said. He also advised them to work with total commitment.

A workshop would be conducted soon on improving government hospitals, he said. KCR also said they would offer adequate funds to improve standards of health services by acquiring latest technology, apparatus and paraphernalia.