PANAJI
The five-bedded post-operative cardio-thoracic intensive care unit of the Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery Department of Goa Medical College, Bambolim was inaugurated on Wednesday. The unit, cost about Rs 80 lakh, has been sponsored by Industrialist Narayan Bandekar, through the Manda and Narayan Bandekar Charitable Trust.
Speaking after the inauguration, Head of the Department Dr Shirish Borkar informed, "When we started the department, we had 8-bedded post-operative ICU. At that time it was not possible to have the operation theatre on the same floor as the ICU. Currently, what has happened is the number of surgeries has gone up and it has become difficult to transport the patient from ground floor to the top floor and that too through open corridors. So we thought we should do something close to the operation theatre. We have added five beds here."
Speaking further, Dr Borkar said, "Now we will be very close to the operation theatre. Monitoring of and patient management would become easier. This would reduce infection and we would have five additional beds which would help in reducing the waiting period for operations to less than a month which is currently about one and a half month."
Speaking on the occasion, the Health Minister informed that the addition of five beds to the post-operative cardio-thoracic intensive care unit will result into an increase in surgical output of the department.
"The capacity of performing surgeries will increase and the waiting period will be reduced," he said.
GMC Dean Dr Pradip Naik however informed that the Cardiac Unit, which is currently functioning as a service unit, will be soon converted into a teaching unit.
"The Medical Council of India inspectors recently conducted an inspection of the Cardiology Department and the report is awaited. We are hopeful of getting approval to start super-speciality courses in cardiology by the next academic year. We have planned in such a way that once we have our own super-speciality block, all the departments get converted into teaching departments and the courses begin within the next three years," said Naik.
Meanwhile, lamenting that it is difficult to get doctors to work on the cardiac ambulances, Rane said, "We will now get the doctors from outside the State and train them."
