Mysuru:  Following a social media campaign, protests and bike rally over the demand for an Emergency Hospital in Kodagu, Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha has said that he had received a call from Durga Shakthi Nagpal, Officer on Special Duty to Union Health Minister Dr. Harsh Vardhan and that she is positively considering the request. 

Pratap Simha, along with Madikeri MLA Appachu Ranjan, Union Minister of Chemicals and Fertilisers D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Union Minister for Railways Piyush Goyal and Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya, met Dr. Harsh Vardhan in New Delhi recently urging him to consider the growing demand for a super-speciality Hospital in Kodagu. 

The tourist hotspot of Kodagu is a hilly district in the lap of Western Ghats and covers an area of 4,102 sq km. The Minister was told that even today the district does not have a major hospital and residents have been forced to travel more than a hundred kilometres, either to Mangaluru or Mysuru, to avail benefits of advanced medicine, even in case of an emergency.

Every year, lakhs of tourists visit Kodagu and is a birthplace for River Cauvery that is a lifeline of South Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Despite this, hospitals in Kodagu lack cardiac care, trauma centre, specialist doctors and neuro and orthopaedic surgeons to deal with medical emergencies. 

Patients from Kodagu need to travel at least 150 kilometres to reach a specialty hospital and eight out of 10 succumb on the way, the Minister was told. The demand for such a medical facility has been long pending but successive Governments have not taken any steps in this direction, Pratap Simha told the Minister. 

Soon after their meeting, Durga Shakthi Nagpal informed the MP that the Centre is considering the request positively and the Hospital will be set up at Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences, Madikeri. It will have super-specialities including cardiology, neuro surgery and poly trauma departments, the MP was informed. 

It may be recalled here that earlier, Pratap Simha had promised that he would give Rs.5 crore from his Member of Parliament Local Area Development Fund over a period of two years for the Hospital.  For the record, Kodagu Institute of Medical Sciences in Madikeri is a 319-bed associated Teaching Hospital.