It’s been many years since the city’s new public healthcare facilities were launched but have remained non-functional and unavailable to the public for one reason – non-availability of doctors and nursing staff.
The trauma care center, the super-speciality hospital and the district hospital, all on the KRS Road on the premises of PKTB Sanatorium here, are lying idle – they are not being used for the purpose for which they were developed.
The hospitals were temporarily used in 2020 and 2021 for treating COVID-19 patients as Mysuru was reporting second largest cases in Karnataka after Bengaluru and the beds at K.R. Hospital were not sufficient to handle the patient load.
Now that the COVID-19 cases have come under control, the hospitals are once again lying unused. The sole reason why these facilities, each of them built spending crores of rupees, was the absence of human resources and also certain equipment.
“How to run hospitals without doctors, nursing and paramedical staff and the support staff?,” is the question being asked for many years by the authorities concerned whenever there were talks about the nonfunctional facilities.
When institutes like Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, which is seen as a model in cardiac care in India, are run so professionally and successfully being the State-run hospitals, why cannot other State-run hospitals be run like that? Such questions are being raised by the public since the branch of the institute is also located on the KRS Road, close to the above said healthcare facilities.
New branches of the Sri Jayadeva institute started functioning immediately after their launch.
The question is — “Why cannot the trauma care center, super speciality hospital and the district hospital be operationalised immediately, employing the doctors and staff for their functioning?” The purpose for which the facilities were built is not being served as years are passing and the facilities have continued to remain unavailable to the public.
The views of Sri Jayadeva Institute Director Dr. C.N. Manjunath, who was in Mysuru, were sought during a media interaction on how to address the issue of healthcare facilities remaining idle despite making available infrastructure like buildings. “Whenever a new hospital or a healthcare facility is approved, provision has to be made for appointing doctors and other staff along with the allocation for the construction of building and equipment. The Cabinet has to give approval for both the building and the staff. This will address the issue,” he suggested.
If a public healthcare facility has to run successfully and effectively, the patients’ feedback plays a key role and this should be kept in mind while managing the facilities. “That’s the reason we have a feedback system at Sri Jayadeva,” he suggested.
The three facilities come under the Mysore Medical College and Research Institute (MMCRI) whose management has written to the government seeking sanction of the posts, particularly doctors and nursing staff for launching the healthcare services to the needy.
