Lack of infrastructure at South Goa District Hospital, patients referred to Goa Medical College

Porvorim: The patients arriving at South Goa District Hospital are being referred to Goa Medical College (GMC) due to the non-availability of orthopaedic implants and MRI facilities at the District hospital, said health minister Vishwajit Rane. 

The patients in need of ICU care, unstable cardiac patients requiring a cardiologist's opinion as well as investigation and treatment of coronary angiography are being sent to the GMC as well, reports The Times of India.

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When being questioned by opposition MLAs, Rane responded that the South Goa district hospital is completely functional, stating, "Hospicio South Goa district hospital is fully operational since October 2021. All OPDs, OTs, and wards are functioning. Only the blood bank is at the Old Hospicio."

Other cases which are being referred to GMC include Cerebrovascular accident cases and complications of intracerebral bleeding, CT scan, and evaluation by neurosurgeons, poisoning neurotoxic snake bites that may need ICU care and ventilator support as well as ST-elevation myocardial infarction heart attack and thrombolysis. 

Further, medicine cases like chronic obstructive pulmonary/lung disease and pneumonia patients who need ventilator support, chronic kidney disease and acute renal failure procedures, and severe anemia or low platelet count cases who need packed cell or platelet transfusions are also not being treated at the District Hospital. The cases involving the medicine department like complicated cases of pyrexia (fever) where diagnosis needs further tests are referred to the GMC as well, reports the TOI. 

The obstetrics, gynaec, and surgery patients requiring ICU care as well as paediatric cases that require pediatric intensive care unit (PICU) along with surgery patients in need of ICU care, those who require urology and neurology opinion are all referred from the District Hospital to the GMC, reports the TOI. 

Between 2017 and 2021, more than 14,000 patients were referred from Hospicio hospital in Margao to GMC. Now, within eight months of October 2021, nearly 2,600 patients were referred from the South Goa District Hospital to GMC. 

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