Mysuru: Pressure on State-run K.R. Hospital will soon be a thing of the past as the District Hospital is coming up on KRS Road and is scheduled to be inaugurated in March 2019. Mysuru does not have a District Hospital unlike other districts as K.R. Hospital and Cheluvamba Hospital are taking the load.

Established by the Wadiyars, so far the K.R. Hospital and Cheluvamba Hospital have been catering to patients from Mysuru, Chamarajanagar, H.D. Kote, Hunsur, Mandya and even Kodagu Districts. K.R. Hospital or ‘Doddaspathre’ as termed by the rural folk and Cheluvamba Hospital are the teaching hospitals attached to the Mysore Medical College and Research Institute (MMC&RI) under the Directorate of Medical Education.

On an average, every day, 1,200 patients visit K.R. Hospital and Cheluvamba Hospital. With just a skeleton staff working here, the doctors face a daunting task in treating all the patients. Once the District Hospital starts functioning, more than 50 percent of the patients can be diverted to this centre and the doctors at K.R. and Cheluvamba Hospitals can dedicate more time to their patients.

The new District Hospital has been built at a vast area on KRS Road (in the Epidemic Hospital premises) and the campus is spread across 13 acres. The 300-bedded District Hospital will have multispecialty facilities. It will be a three-storied building and will have all specialists including Paediatricians, Orthopaedicians and Gynaecologists.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, District Surgeon Dr. Pashupathi said that the construction of the new District Hospital was taken up at a cost of Rs. 70 crore by Karnataka Health System Development and Reform Project, in association with Bengaluru-based Star Developers.

Except minor painting works, the implementing agency has almost completed all the pending civil works and the building will be ready for public use in a matter of days. Once the implementing agency completes the works, the keys will be handed over to the Department of Health and Family Welfare. The Department is installing new equipment on a war-footing. Preference will be given for mother and children care at the new hospital, he said.                       

Due to a lot of pressure faced by K.R. and Cheluvamba Hospitals, elected representatives of the region had exerted pressure on the State Government to sanction the District Hospital. An exclusive hospital for Mysuru was also one of the main demands of the Department of Health and Family Welfare as Mysuru lacked such a facility despite being a Tier-II city.

The 300-bed District Hospital has all the multi-speciality facilities like blood collection unit, outpatient ward, operation theatre, post operative wards, labour wards, special wards and physiotherapy sections. It will have specialists including Orthopaedicians, Paediatricians and Dermatologists like the K.R. Hospital and Cheluvamba Hospital. Apart from this, the hospital will have six operation theatres, four lifts and an oxygen room, neurology, administrative block, ICUs, Resident Medical Officer’s section and other facilities.

The basement of the building has facilities like OPD, Gynaecology and Ultrasound, Scanning, Labour Lab, Post-Labour Lab, Oxygen Cylinder Room and Paediatrics division. The ground floor has facilities like Pharmacy, Injection Centre, ECG and Treadmill, Echo Cardiology, Minor Operation Theatre, Special Wards, Emergency Division and Orthopaedics.