200-bed additional building ready at Nashik's civil hospital

NASHIK: With the Kumbh Mela just around the corner, the construction of 200-bed building on the campus of Nashik civil hospital campus has been completed. The building will be handed over to the civil hospital next week, said G M Holey, additional civil surgeon.
Officials said they have also received the beds and other equipment for the facility, while the decision on the deployment of the required staff will be taken by the higher authorities soon.
The construction of the hospital began in August 2014. Though the work was expected to be over by April 2015, senior officials said the facility was completed in time and would help them meet any contingency during the mega religious event.
The additional civil surgeon said it was up to the higher authorities to either send the required medical staff on deputation or take up the recruitment process.
There is a similar 200-bed facility in Malegaon and based on the number of staff members it has, the one in Nashik would have about 10-12 doctors, 60 nurses, lab and X-ray technicians and class IV staff.
The construction of the new building was taken up considering the rush of pilgrims at the civil hospital during the last Kumbh Mela, which witnessed a stampede that claimed lives of 39 pilgrims and left hundreds injured. The work of adding capacity to the hospital was taken up to overcome shortage of infrastructure during such events.
As of now, the civil hospital has 541 beds of which 20 are in the trauma ward. The new four-storied structure has been constructed near the prisoners’ ward of the civil hospital at a cost of Rs 5 crore.
Holey said, “After the facility is handed over to the Nashik civil hospital, we would start shifting general patients to it. Currently, there is no shortage of staff. But we would need additional medical staff for the new building. However, there is a shortage of class IV employees and they have been hired on contract basis to meet the requirement.”