After 5 years,Safdarjung Hospital ‘ivory towers’ shelved

The original plan that was approved in 2006 stated that the hospital,spread over a 40-acre plot,should be razed in three phases and rebuilt with nine towers where seven super-speciality units would have come up. This would have included an IVF centre,a centre for renal and liver transplants,cardiovascular and neurological diseases centres,and a nursing home.

The project that was being planned under the aegis of consultant firm Grant Thornton would have doubled the hospital’s bed strength from 1,531 to over 3,000,and operation theatres from 32 to 64. A multi-level basement was also envisaged in the feasibility studies.

The parliamentary committee for health,clearly dismayed with the health ministry’s latest decision on the delayed project,said: “This (cancellation of the project) has not come as a surprise,considering the pace with which things were moving in respect of redevelopment plan of the hospital in the previous years.”

Over the past three years,the parliamentary committee in its annual reports,had repeatedly pointed out the inordinate delays plaguing the project and the hospital’s failure to spend the annual allocated funds for its redevelopment.

The committee’s report said the hospital needed to do “a serious introspection” and “realistic measures and all conceivable efforts should be made so that the new redevelopment project gets completed within the given time period”.

“For this to happen,targets need to be set,resources to be put to use judiciously and implementing agencies to be made accountable to accomplish the set targets,” it said.

In its request for grants for the next five years,the hospital has proposed to build a single super-specialty block with 650 beds,and a special centre to handle chemical,biological,radiological and nuclear casualties,for which Rs 257 crore has been allotted.

However,the Health ministry was not keen on taking the hospital’s plans forwards given its track record so far. Senior ministry officials blamed lack of proper planning at the inception stage itself. “Equipment has been purchased ,but specialists are not available. We have floated tenders for procurement of surgical equipment for gastroenterology and liver. The problem is we have no qualified doctors. In the renal transplant unit,equipment have been purchased and are rusting. By the time the centre is ready for operations,we will probably need up-to-date material,” an official in the ministry said.

These apart,there have been a growing list of problems that did the project in. The hospital authorities could not appoint a single nephrologist for renal transplants,though three posts were created. For the IVF unit,companies failed to provide favourable offers and repeated tenders led to delays.