RML Hospital to get new accident & emergency building

In a bid to accommodate the ever-increasing number of patients at the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital here, a new five-storey "accident and emergency" building will be inaugurated at the hospital's campus in January.

The new building will house some of the major wards for the departments like radio diagnosis, pediatrics, surgery medicines neo-natal care unit and three operation theaters.

RML, a centrally funded hospital with a capacity of 1,100 beds has over 1,500 admitted patients.

According to the official data, RML hospital gets around 7,000-8,000 patients daily in its Out Patient Department (OPD) and over 1,000 patients in its emergency department.

"This building was one of the most urgent need of the RML hospital. Due to its prime location and the poor condition at the Delhi government hospitals, every body including people staying in West and East Delhi comes to RML, which has increased the pressure. Admitting more than one patient on one bed increases the chances of mis-medication," Sunil Saxena, Head of Accident and Emergency hospital at RML told IANS.

He said there are a few more proposals to extend the infrastructure for the other departments of the hospital but they were yet to get an clearance from the central government.

RML is Delhi's nodal centre, and the only one in the capital, for monitoring and treating Ebola patients since its breakout in some of the countries in Africa continent.

A.K. Gadpayle, Head of the Medicine Department at RML, who is also the in-charge of the overall administration, said: "The hospital December onwards will start a 'new single window' system through which the patients or their attendants won't have to rush to different places for submission of their forms and payment of fees before getting the treatment or getting admitted in the hospital."

He said that the initiative has been taken keeping in focus the time wasted by the patient or his attendant while completing the formalities, and making the treatment process easily accessible.

Currently, a patient or their kin has to at least spend three days to complete the formalities before getting admitted in the hospital.

Gadpayle told IANS that the initiative has also been taken to make the admission process more easy for the handicapped and the senior citizens.

"We want to save the precious time of three days of the patient; they get annoyed running from window to window to submit their forms," he said.

"From December the entire hospital will be Wi-Fi enabled. However, to prevent any misuse, its usage will be limited only to the doctor and staff," he told IANS.