Tura Civil Hospital’s new annexed building in grave danger; patients shifted to another facility

The situation worsened after the cyclonic storm on Thursday and the current situation, despite the repairs being undertaken, has made the situation worse.

By Biplab Kr Dey

The new annexed building of the Tura Civil Hospital is in grave danger. It is on the verge of collapsing owing to a massive landslide right behind the facility. As per inputs the landslide which occured on March 27 has damaged the retaining wall that is now posing threat to the hospital building that is packed with patients.

It has been more than 2 weeks now since the incident took place but the issue is yet to be resolved. The situation worsened after the cyclonic storm on Thursday and the current situation, despite the repairs being undertaken, has made the situation worse.
Meanwhile, taking serious note of the matter, the Superintendent of the Tura Civil Hospital yesteday issued a notice for shifting out patients from the new annexed building to a different facility or discharge patients where possible to avoid any untoward incident till the safety of the building is restored. The new building handles patients of Psychiatry ward, Ortho & ENT Ward, Male Medical Ward, ICU, Paying cabins, OPDs.
The repairing of the retaining wall by the Health Engineering Wing to ensure safety of the structure is going on and is expected to be complete within 12 days.
“Once the safety is confirmed after the completion of the work, the patients and the machines will be shifted back,” the notice said.
Worth mentioning, on March 27 itself the SP Of Tura Civil Hospital had written to the Chairman of the Disaster Management Authority urging the lattter to take immediate action.
Following this a joint inspection into the eroded retaining wall behind the new Annexed building of Tura Civil hospital was done by the District Disaster Management officer, West Garo Hills Tura and the Medical Superintendent of Tura Civil Hospital accompanied by Dr Debojit Sangma, senior medical and health officer Tura Civil hospital on March 31.
The team observed and recommended the urgent construction of the protection wall against the eroded retaining wall keeping in mind about the risk to the lives of the employees as well as the patients and also residents just below the retaining walls. The director of health service was directed to take up the matter for urgent rectification by the DC and Chairman DDMA West Garo Hills district.
However, owing to reasons which are still not yet clear, the construction work is reportedly moving at a slow pace.
On May 11, the medical Superintendent wrote to the Executive Engineer of the Public Health Engineering department (PHED) West Garo Hills stating about slow progress in the works. The letter also stated that “as the work if going on land/soil continue to fall reaching to the wall and foundation level of the building and if rain starts anytime the safety of the building and patients and staffs seem to be in danger.”
The Tura Civil hospital Superintendent therefore urged the competent authority to assess the safety of the building and also to speed up the repairing works before rains happen.

COMMENTS

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment *

Name *

Email *

Website

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Comment *

Name *

Email *

Website