Power outages hit Kakinada hospital

KAKINADA: Patients at the Government General Hospital here are bedevilled by power problems. The infrastructure at the hospital is in a mess, and shortcircuits affects power supply frequently.

During the summer, the patients unable to bear the heat in the wards are urging officials to allot AC rooms for their survival. The hospital authorities are helpless.
Hospital superintendent Y. Nageswara Rao said that as a precautionary measure, surgeries in the pediatrics wing had been postponed by up to one  month. Only important surgeries were being done in the hospital.

According to hospital authorities, the wiring is very old and has to be  replaced. But then, the building is so old that trying to replace the wiring could damage the structure. Five years back, officials prepared estimates for Rs 60 lakh to rewire the  hospital to prevent short-circuits and other electrical accidents.

The APNGOs Association led by its district president B. Asheervadam donated Rs 1 crore to the hospital to improve the power supply system in the hospital.  But officials said the building was very old and it was not possible to  replace the electrical system. "If we dig up the old electrical poles in the hospital, the buildings may collapse," said a senior medical officer.

Officials had sent two proposals to the government: Construct new buildings or auction the buildings and purchase nearly 50-100 acres on the outskirts of the city and construct new buildings. "It would make use of the hospital to cater the needs of future generations and we can give corporate hospital level treatment to the patients free," said a resident medical officer.