Uttarakhand to set up 7 trauma centres

Money for these centres, mobile hospitals will be provided through the CM's

After the June deluge, the Uttarakhand government on Friday announced plans to set up 7 trauma centres for the disaster-prone hilly areas and a mobile hospital each in all the 13 districts in order to provide quick medical relief in road accidents and calamities.

 

“Each district will be provided with a mobile unit equipped with ultra modern facilities. A 50 bed trauma centre, each, will also be set up in Guptkashi, Gauchar, Joshimath, Jauljeevi, Kapkot, Bageshwar and Uttarkashi,” said Chief Minister Vijay Bahuguna at a function here. The money for these trauma centres and mobile hospitals will be provided through the CM’s Disaster Relief Fund, he said. 

 

Inaugurating a newly built Emergency Service Centre at Dehradun’s Mahant Indresh Hospital, Bahuguna said “with the support of private hospitals, we shall try and get doctors from big hospitals to extend their services in the district hospitals”.

 

The CM Bahuguna said that the state had taken several lessons from the June disaster. A state disaster response force had been set up in the state which will be trained by National Disaster Response Force (NDRF). 

 

The CM said that the state is working with a long term plan in context of the natural disaster. A scientific plan is being prepared with the support of Geological Survey of India (GSI) and Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI). The union government is giving all necessary support. He said that the doctor’s profession is very noble and it requires a lot of motivation. A lot of hospitals have come up in the state but they should now be expanded to the hill areas, he said. 

 

Significantly, a trauma care unit set up in Gopeshwar in Chamoli district to provide life-saving treatment to victims of road accidents remains non-functional even after being constructed at a cost of Rs 1.49 crore, defeating the purpose for which it was built, a recent CAG report had said. Due to non-functioning of the trauma unit in the accident-prone Gopeshear town of Chamoli district, 1,072 accident victims had to be referred to considerably distant places like Srinagar town in the state, which is a 4 hour-drive away, and Dehra Dun, a 7 hour-drive away, putting them at high risk, said the report. The construction of the trauma care unit took more than 3 years against the stipulated time of one year due to inability of the health department in handing over land to the state's Peyjal Nigam, the executing agency, and then the slow progress of work by it. Ends