KASARGOD: The Kasaragod Medical College Hospital at Ukkinadka is likely to be reopened as a primary health centre with out-patient (OP) consultations on December 1. A full-fledged hospital is at least two years away, said officials at the Directorate of Medical Education.
For one year and a half, a covid hospital with 120 beds was run from the administrative block of the medical college, which is under construction since 2014. The covid hospital was wound up for 10 days on October 1 to electrify the oxygen plant.
"Now that the covid cases have fallen and can be managed by other hospitals in the district, we are planning to start general non-covid OP consultation in the administrative block," said Dr Roy N, special officer (new medical colleges), Directorate of Medical Education. The OP wing will have eight counters and will be managed by nine doctors and nine nurses.
The government had appointed 12 doctors to run the covid hospital at the medical college building.
Of them three are non-clinical doctors and excess nurses will be recalled till the medical college hospital is ready, said Dr Roy. The government had created 273 posts for the medical college hospital with the provision to fill half of the posts for covid treatment.
The proposed OP wing will not have speciality consultations and no patients will be admitted. Initially, 50 patients can be attended to and it can be increased to up to 200 patients. The OP wing will have a laboratory, X-ray unit, and pharmacy which will give medicines free of cost.
Dr Roy said the government tried to expedite the process of admitting medical students by proposing the District Hospital in Kanhangad as the teaching hospital for the medical college.
But the National Medical Commission (NMC) rejected the proposal as the distance between the medical college campus and the District Hospital is more than 50km and will take around one hour and a half to traverse.
According to the NMC's rules, a medical college can consider the Government District Hospital as the teaching hospital only if it is within 10 km or can be reached in 30 minutes.
Now, Kasaragod Medical College will become a reality only after the hospital block becomes functional. "We have to run a fully functional hospital with 200 beds, ICU, and labour room for two years before we can apply for admitting students," said Dr Roy.
The special officer said he was expecting the hospital building to be fully ready by mid of 2024. If that happens, the hospital can admit MBBS students by mid-2026.
He said the work in Kasaragod was "smoothly progressing" and there was no lack of funds to disrupt the projected timeline.
The residential blocks -- which include hostels and residential quarters for faculty members -- will also be ready before 2016, he said.
The government has sanctioned Rs 160 crore from the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) for the residential blocks.
The Academic Block was constructed at a cost of Rs 25 crore sanctioned from the Kasaragod Package, and the Administrative Block was constructed at a cost of Rs 88.20 crore. The work on the five-story hospital block is progressing.
In September 2020, the then health minister K K Shailaja said here that the government was developing the Kasaragod Medical College to provide super speciality service to people.
Eight years after the then chief minister Oommen Chandy laid the foundation stone for the medical college, Kasaragod will be getting a PHC-grade medical college on December 1.