The Nims’ 200-bed Accident (trauma) Emergency Hospital and the 300-bed Specialty Hospital at Banjara Hills will be inaugurated on Saturday, but there is absolutely no provision for patient care and utter lack of even basic amenities in the buildings that were completed almost two years ago. There is no facility yet for trauma care, no equipment, monitors or oxygen pipelines. Despite this, a circular has been issued to Nims doctors stating that Chief Minister N. Kiran Kumar Reddy and health minister K. Murali will inaugurate the buildings on Saturday. No Central minister or other functionary has been invited even though 80 per cent (`100 crore) of the project was funded under the Pradhan Mantri Swastha Suraksha Yojana.
Nims doctors are apprehensive that once the blocks are inaugurated, nothing more will be done and this project will meet the same fate as Nims’ Bibinagar project. Since November 2011, attempts have been made to get the hospitals inaugurated by the Union health minister Ghulam Nabi Azad whenever he visited the city. The state health minister Dr D.L. Ravindra Reddy (who was then in-charge of teaching hospitals) did not want the inauguration as the buildings were not equipped for patient care.
“The new blocks have not catered to a single patient so far, nor does it have the infrastructure to attend to emergency cases. It only caters to the administrative, establishment and human resources staff. Once it is inaugurated and publicity mileage is gained, the project will be forgotten,” said a senior doctor.