Health dept eyes 50-bed prefabricated hospitals to fill in infrastructure gap

Ranchi: Jharkhand govt’s department of health, medical education and family welfare is pushing to commission 50-bed prefabricated field hospitals in districts that lack govt healthcare facilities.
Earlier this month, the department sanctioned Rs 3.47 crore to set up a prefabricated field hospital at Mango in East Singhbhum district. Such hospitals are in the pipeline in other districts in the coming months, department officials said.
“Prefabricated hospitals will use a non-conventional construction method.Instead of bricks, precast concrete structures and iron angles will be used. The whole idea is to reduce the construction time for the hospitals so that they could be put into use within a short span of time,” health secretary Ajoy Kumar Singh told TOI. Singh added that construction of such facilities will be completed within six months.
Proposals are in place to set up similar hosps in 19 locations across the state, including Chatra, Deoghar, Dumka, Garhwa, Giridih, Pakur, Palamu, Seraikela-Kharsawan, West Singhbhum, Simdega, and Ranchi districts.
Ranchi civil surgeon Dr Prabhat Kumar said three pre-fabricated hospitals are coming up in Bundu, Kanke and Brambe blocks of the district.
“The work for the Brambe hospital is in its advanced stages while the remaining two are beginning,” he added.
The prefabricated hospitals were originally a part of the Union ministry of health and family welfare’s ECRP-II (Emergency Covid Response Package) scheme under which Jharkhand govt was alloted Rs 638.9 crore during the 2021-22 FY for the commissioning of such hospitals to tackle a pandemic like Covid-19.
“Besides the field hospitals, there is another proposal to sett up 10-bed ICU units in districts which have relatively weak medical infrastructure. The department has recently inked a memorandum of understanding with a private company for its operations under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode,” an official of the department said.