The Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) has laid focus on revamping its healthcare infrastructure. The civic body plans to start an outpatient department (OPD) and develop infrastructure at the existing chest clinic at Sevoke Road and ‘Matri Sadan’- a maternity hospital at Dabgram.

The chairperson of the board of administrators of the SMC, Gautam Deb, Darjeeling district chief medical officer of health Dr Pralay Acharya, dean of student affairs and gynaecologist at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital (NBMCH) Dr Sandip Sengupta, civic body commissioner Sonam Wangdi Bhutia, among others, visited those three sites today.

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“We visited an abandoned under-construction building (near Don Bosco More on Sevoke Road), which was earlier planned for a market complex. The area of the space is 24,000 square feet and is built on 2.42 acres of land. The Congress-Trinamul Congress run civic board had earlier taken a decision to convert it into a healthcare facility in a Public-Private Partnership model, but the project failed to take off. We will start an OPD there soon as part of our plan to develop it as a multi-super speciality hospital. We will talk to the state government,” Mr Deb said.

The team also visited the premises of the Deshbandhu Chest Clinic (Siliguri Tuberculosis Unit). “The facility has come up on land measuring four acres, along with some other facilities of the corporation, some areas have encroached and houses constructed there. We want proper utilization of the area,” Mr Deb said. The TB clinic there operates as an outdoor facility with around 35-40 patients daily.

At ‘Matri Sadan’, the civic body is planning to set up a diagnostic facility, set up a minor operation theatre, a health administrative block and increase the number of beds to provide better health services to the people, according to Mr Deb. There are 12 beds in the indoor facility, and around 35 babies are born there in a month. Around 30 patients turn up at the OPD on an average daily. An OPD for eye problems has also been functional, while it has some testing facilities.

“We have recently given an ultrasound machine there,” Mr Deb said. Sources, however, said that the machine is not operational at present.