Osmania General Hospital alumni seeks proof

Hyderabad: Osmania Medical College Old Students’ Association Trust wants access to the structural certificate of the Osmania General Hospital to ascertain whether the building can be saved.

A team of alumni doctors, conservation and heritage experts, along with architects from JNTU, carried out preliminary assessment of the building on Sunday.

Dr A. Gopal Kishan, emeritus chairman of OSAT said, “For the last 10 days we have been asking the state government to submit the reports of the structural disability of the building. If an architect’s report states that the building is going to collapse in the next two years then where is it? Also who has told the government that the building will not survive for more than 10 years even after repairs? No one is willing to show or give us these documents, hence we have decided to personally inspect the building and make architects draw their own inferences.”

A senior architect, Mr Devi Gupta, is arriving from New Delhi on Monday to assess the structure. Many doctors are upset with news of the demolition and state that modern day technology has to be put to work before taking such a drastic decision.

“Assessment by these architects will give us an independent view of the building,” explained a senior doctor.

Meanwhile health minister of Telangana Dr C. Laxma Reddy said, “The hospital towers will be built only after reaching a consensus on the subject. We are going to discuss it in detail and only then decide the fate of the hospital.”