the goan I network
PANAJI
Health Minister Vishwajit Rane on Monday conceded that the promised super-speciality block will take a while longer even as he admitted that the Goa Medical College and Hospital (GMC) was wilting under the pressure of “tremendous load.”
Speaking after the launch of “Sodexo Food Services” for nursing students at the Nursing Institute in Bambolim, Rane said that though the GMC was wilting under “tremendous load”, the super-speciality block would be some time coming, as the Goa government was looking to see if it could get help from outside the state with the super-speciality hospital.
“We’re looking at a balanced model to run the super-speciality hospital since it’s a huge hospital. The new hospital has to be a center of excellence with an innovative model to run it,” said Rane, claiming that the project would be the “largest hospital under the Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) in the country.”
“It will be even bigger than the one inaugurated by the PM in Gujarat,” said Rane, refusing to name a time-frame by when the super-speciality hospital would be completed. He said that the Goa government would need to study “four or five models” of other hospitals.
Meanwhile, the Health Minister already has plans for the canteen of the super-speciality block, insisting that it will be run by the same “Sodexo” - a French food company headquartered in Paris.
Rane said that Sodexo has come as a blessing to students at the nursing institute most of whom, according to him, had to “eat in unhygienic conditions”.
“The nursing students had nowhere to go for nutritious food, so we tied up with Sodexo,” he said.
After hospitals, Vishwajit looks to bring international canteens to industries
PANAJI: After partnering with an international food company for the GMC and Nursing Institute, Health Minister Vishwajit Rane, who also holds the Industries portfolio, is now looking to set up canteens at industries in Goa.
When it was pointed out that many industries already have canteens, Rane told mediapersons that only the large industries had canteens but that there was “a large number of people for whom hygienic food was inaccessible.”
“We’re conducting an assessment, before implementing the industrial canteen concept with subsidized food for the first one year,” he said.
“The first year will be a pilot study,” he added. Industries at Pilerne, Verna and Kundaim where there are a large number of established industries will be taken for the pilot study.
Rane also said that he would take the GCCI’s views on
this.
The Health Minister also said that the state government was looking at the “medical tourism” concept starting with the Mandrem and Pernem hospital. He claimed it was a “big concept” which would have rehab centers.
