KOLLAM: The Punalur Taluk Hospital that has set a benchmark in public sector healthcare to get a new hi-tech building under Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB). The building will have 32 outpatient units functioning at the same time, which is first of its kind in a taluk hospital. INKEL will construct the 10-storey Rs 68-crore building having a total area of 1,75,000 sq feet under ‘Aardram’ mission. The new facility will have 300 beds for inpatients, 94 ICU beds and six lifts.
“It's a reward for the efforts to bring the hospital to the forefront of modern treatment facilities," Dr R. Shahirsha, the superintendent of the hospital who is behind the achievements, told DC. “The hospital will compete with any of the corporate hospitals in the state, with 32 doctors available at a time attend outpatients in the new building.” The hospital had bagged awards from Kerala State Pollution Control Board for the last six consecutive years of which three are excellence awards.
“This is the first public sector establishment to bag excellence awards three consecutive years,” he said. Health minister K.K. Shylaja, finance minister Thomas Isaac and forest minister K. Raju will attend the stone laying function at 4 pm on Friday. The hospital already has employed 40 advanced cosmetology procedures including skin platelet-rich plasma administration, follicle transplantation, squint correction, and dental jewellery. The programme ‘Beside you – birth companion scheme’ permits husband or female relative of pregnant women to be present in the labour room at the time of delivery.
The hospital is also the first to employ painless delivery facility in a public sector hospital in the state. The hospital has centralised systems for air, oxygen, and suction in all beds, probably the lone facility in public health centres. The dialysis and cancer care services are free. A palliative care also functions at the hospital, which receives over 2,000 outpatients per day - a number a private hospital under normal circumstances used to have.
