Ernakulam Government Medical College gets Rs 1.10 crore revival package

KOCHI: Those who have been waiting for a fresh lease of life for the Ernakulam Government Medical College (EMC) can rejoice. The state government order according sanction to purchase equipment worth Rs 1.10 crore as part of the immediate revival package of the college has reached the principal. “I received the order on Monday and the equipment which we can purchase from the Kerala Medical Services Corporation Limited (KMSCL) will be bought from it. For the rest, we will float tenders,” EMC principal Dr V.K. Sreekala told DC on Tuesday.

“I understand that 80 per cent of the required equipment can be purchased from KMSCL. It will take a month to get them and three months to buy the remaining equipment through tenders,” Dr Sreekala added. It is learnt that since there is no budget allocation for the medical college in this regard, the sum has been re-appropriated from the Idukki Government Medical College, which the state government has decided not to operate this year.

The equipment that will be added to the EMC are pulse oxygenometres, portable beds, small O2 trolleys, crash karts, incline back rests, suction apparatuses, multichannel monitors, wheelchairs, defribillators, ultrasound scan machines, echo machines, nebulisation kits, portable X-Ray machines, ECG machines, BP apparatuses, lithman stethoscopes, ventilators, ICU beds and resuscitation kits. Following the death of medico Shamna Tasneem in July last, the students of the medical college had demanded that basic facilities should be added to the medical college, to avoid more such deaths due to shortage of facilities. As a sequel, the EMC authorities had submitted the list of equipment to the government.