Kasaragod Medical College Hospital to Turn into Primary Health Centre

In the thick of the pandemic, a covid hospital with 120 beds was run from the administrative block of the medical college, which is under construction since 2014.

"Now that the covid cases have fallen and can be managed by other hospitals in the district, we are planning to start general non-covid OP consultation in the administrative block," said Dr Roy N, special officer (new medical colleges), Directorate of Medical Education. The OP wing will have eight counters and will be managed by nine doctors and nine nurses.

Twelve doctors have been appointed by the government to run the covid hospital at the medical college building.

Of them three are non-clinical doctors and excess nurses will be recalled till the medical college hospital is ready, said Dr Roy. The government had created 273 posts for the medical college hospital with the provision to fill half of the posts for covid treatment.

The proposed OP wing will not have specialty consultations and no patients will be admitted. Initially, 50 patients can be attended to and it can be increased to up to 200 patients. The OP wing will have a laboratory, X-ray unit, and pharmacy which will give medicines free of cost.

Dr Roy informed TNIE the government tried to expedite the process of admitting medical students by proposing the District Hospital in Kanhangad as the teaching hospital for the medical college.

However, Kasaragod Medical College will become a reality only after the hospital block becomes functional. "We have to run a fully functional hospital with 200 beds, ICU, and labour room for two years before we can apply for admitting students," said Dr Roy.

In September 2020, the then health minister K K Shailaja said here that the government was developing the Kasaragod Medical College to provide super speciality service to people.