Super-speciality private heart hospital in Goa soon

Panaji, July 12 (UNI) State Health Minister Dayanand Narvekar today told the Goa Legislative Assembly that the Government was committed to opening a super-speciality hospital for cardiac disorders under the public-private-partnership soon.

Stating this during question hour in reply to Vinay Tendulkar (BJP), the Minister said the Government had identified a 5,000 square metre land on the Goa Medical College (GMC) hospital complex for the purpose. It would soon open an expression of interest for the cardiac unit, where all the medical students would be allowed to get training and acquire skills.

As many as 964 patients had been referred to the GMC for heart ailments since 2001, till last year, he added.

Replying to Vasudeo M Gaocar, the Minister said the Government had spent more than Rs 2.56 crores on repair and maintenance of primary health centres, community health centres and various other hospitals in the State since January last year till February this year. More amount would be spent soon for undertaking various other repairs in hospitals for the improvement of facilities, he added.

To another question raised by Francis D' Souza, Mr Narvekar said as many as 12 people died of rabies out of a total 15 cases reported since February last year. At the same time, the Government had supplied 15,310 units of anti-rabies vaccine to health centres.

He had also submitted a list of 1,577 instances in which operation had been postponed last year for want of time, blood, linen, instruments, oxygen and even surgeons in different units. He also gave details of the postponement for the first five months this year, for same reasons.

The members expressed concern over the postponement that caused a lot of inconvenience for the patients, and sought planned execution of the surgeries with adequate manpower.

The Minister, however, said most of the patients were found to be ''unfit'' for undergoing the operation and, hence, the decison to postpone. The doctors were, thus, forced to work overtime for about 820 hours.

He assured that efforts would be made to improve the situation, particularly in orthopaedic units where the surgeons were facing a lot pressure due to increased number of accidents requiring surgery.

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