Students repair faulty equipment at hospital

Kochi: A team of 50 BTech students from the Muthoot Institute of Technology and Science (MITS) at Puthenkurissu in the eastern part of Ernakulam district have descended on the Ernakulam Government Medical College (EMC) with a seven-day mission.

The mission is to undertake repairs on the equipment at the medical college hospital which have turned faulty and dumped in a corner. The students are part of the National Service Scheme Technical Cell at the college and repairs are being undertaken as part of the Punarjani scheme of NSS under which faulty equipment in hospitals across the state worth crores of rupees have already been repaired. They have named the campaign as ‘youth for asset revival’.

In the Punarjani camp, students turned to the repair of equipments such as phototherapy units, incubators, X-Ray unit, view box, UPS, BP apparatus, nebulizer, water filter, wheelchairs, stretchers, patient trolley and oxygen carrying unit. They painted pharmacy racks, medical store racks, multipurpose bed and normal beds. In the ICU unit also many equipment were restored to their original state. A total of four wards were shifted and broken beds and patient lockers were fixed.

The seven-day camp is led by Prins Korah, MITS NSS Programme officer, health inspector Shafeeq, volunteer secretary Aswin T A and Ramya Raghavan. It will conclude on Friday.

Medical Superintendent of EMC Dr Peter Vazhayil was all praise for the MITS team. “Their service was invaluable. They helped in ward shifting apart from repairing equipment and painting them. Both girls and boys joined hands in this mission for us. They did not waste time and worked hard from morning till evening,” he said.

 “We are proud of the social service initiative of our students. Muthoot Institute looks forward to developing further innovative solutions for the Kerala health service,” said Dr Ramkumar S, principal of MITS.