The Valley’s premier child care centre, GB Pant Hospital, has grown into a cutting edge facility with integrated healthcare services, research and children friendly healing process, even as the flood-ravaged government-run hospitals in Kashmir are still struggling to restore normal operations.
With the addition of new equipments and expertise, the officials at the GB Pant Hospital say a lot of thought has gone into remodeling the functioning of the centre.
In the past few months, the hospital authorities have added 10 high-end ventilators, installed Rs 3 crore worth sewerage treatment plant (STP), an echocardiography machine and a 16-slice CT scan machine.
The hospital has also improved its work culture and started super specialties in paediatric nephrology, ophthalmology and haematology.
The authorities at the GB Pant Hospital, which in the past has often been in news for the wrong reasons, are also pushing the staff to work towards improving healthcare and bringing down the neonatal mortality rate — the number of neonates dying before reaching 28 days of age per 1,000 live births in a given year.
Managing to bring down the alarmingly high mortality rate of 110 per 1,000 live births in 2012 to the 49 deaths per 1,000 live births at present, Medical Superintendant Dr Shafaqat Khan said a lot more had to be still done.
The mortality rate at the centre is still higher than the national average of 30.
As per records, in the past three months the hospital has admitted 1,029 neonates out of which 51 have died.
Signage and patient-friendly cartoons are dotting the wards of the hospital while nutritional counseling and wards for lactating mothers have been added to the health centre.
“Apart from providing best healthcare facilities, the GB Pant Hospital looks more of a childcare school. It is clean and staff here is very helpful,” said a woman, who was feeding her newborn baby at the Nutritional Rehabilitation Centre (NRC) of the hospital.
The officials at the NRC provide suggestions to the mothers about the nutritional deficiencies in their children and ways to cure them.
A senior doctor at the Ophthalmology Department said GB Pant was the only government hospital in Kashmir which was doing lasers for retinopathy of prematurity.
Kashmir was struck by a devastating deluge in September 2014. Major parts of the Valley, including Srinagar city, were under water for more than a week.
Floodwater had also entered the ground floor of the GB Pant Hospital and four other tertiary care hospitals associated with Government Medical College, Srinagar.
Like other hospitals, floodwater had damaged the infrastructure at GB Pant Hospital also. However, the authorities improvised on the resources available and pushed its staff to work towards hygiene and cleanliness.
At least 46 truckloads of garbage and scrap had accumulated in the hospital after the floods.
“Sanitising the whole hospital on daily basis is a norm. No one is allowed to move inside wards and intensive care units without fumigated hospital gowns,” said Nazir Ahmad, a hospital employee.
The faculty members are doing research in rare disorders, incidents of cancer, malnutrition, tuberculosis and other childhood illnesses. The centre also imparts healthcare and hospital administration training to medicos and paramedics.
“The ambience, the mood, the culture have all been shaped around the patients while research will create knowledge and spur innovation,” said Dr Khan said.
The hospital, under the Centre-sponsored Rogi Kalyan Samiti grant, also provides free treatment to poor and under privileged.
GB Pant hospital was established in 2005 as a joint venture of state government and defence authorities with sanctioned 135-bed capacity. The bed strength has now gone up to 254.
Post-flood, GB Pant Hospital takes lead in Valley’s healthcare
