JULIO DSILVA
julio@herald-goa.com
The century-old heritage structure, constructed during the Portuguese regime that houses Hospicio, is still going strong and thriving while the extensions built after Goa’s liberation are crumbling.
As per the marble plaque at Hospicio, late Fr Antonio Joao de Miranda had started the Hospicio do Sagrado Coracao de Maria on December 13, 1867 while the extension building whose weak portion was demolished on Monday was inaugurated on August 31, 1989 barely 30 years ago.
The old Portuguese-era structure, at present, houses the male and female surgery wards having 24 and 14 beds respectively. Besides, the male and female orthopaedic wards with 17 and 10 beds respectively are also housed there.
The Portuguese era block also has four operational theatres which include the main OT and a side OT, one ophthalmic OT and one septic OT. Besides the Medical Superintendent, male and female doctors’ rooms are also housed here.
The maternity ward with 57 beds, male medicine ward with 40 bed, gynaecology ward with 16 beds, ENT ward with five beds and male optical wards with 5 beds are also housed in the old structure along with the recently started District Early Intervention Centre.
However, the annex building that was inaugurated in 1989 was declared unsafe five years back and it was then that the female surgery ward was shifted from the third floor of the annex to the Portuguese era building.
While the second floor of the annex has been abandoned by Hospicio, a dialysis centre is being run there which was outsourced to one Dr Venkatesh who is now apparently refusing to leave the premises according to Dr Ira Almeida the Medical Superintendent.
The casualty department, ultra sound room, matron’s office, nurses changing room, part of pharmacy store, are situated on the ground floor of the annex and the first floor has the coronary unit and female medicine ward and female ophthalmic ward.
With the recent collapse of a wall of the annex building, patients are reportedly being shifted to the old building.
The old structure is still standing strong even though the number of patients and their visitors are a lot more than that handled by the annex. On an average there are 200 deliveries handled by the hospital per month and all the nursing mothers and babies are kept in the maternity ward.
Although the District Hospital is supposed to shift from the Hospicio building to the new building under construction at Fatorda, this is not expected to happen in the near future even though the government says the new hospital will be ready by the year end.
Supervisors at the site revealed that the work is hampered by the monsoons and added that despite their best efforts the civil works will be completed at the earliest by March 2018.
“The monsoons have really hampered our work and that will push us behind the schedule by at least three months,” said the supervisor of Parnika Commercial Est Pvt Ltd, which has undertaken the civil works of the new hospital premises in December 2015.
Sources revealed that tenders have been invited to construct the operation theatres which take at least eight months to construct and get ready. This means the Operation Theatres will not be ready by March 2018 and at the most other departments not requiring surgical intervention may be shifted to the new building while surgery departments will continue at Hospicio.
“The OTs have to be specially prepared as they are totally steel structures and have to be specially fabricated and it takes about eight months to prepare them,” said Dr. Ira.
“We were told about five years ago that the second and third floor of the annex building was not safe and that is when we shut down the female surgery ward situated on the third floor and moved it to the old building,” said Medical Superintendent Dr. Ira Almeida.
