ASHLEY DO ROSARIO
PANAJI
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's announcement of a Rs 500 crore infrastructure push for the Goa Medical College (GMC) has been widely welcomed, but senior doctors and healthcare experts say the investment must go beyond buildings and beautification to address a more pressing need of modernising medical equipment and technology.
The State's premier tertiary healthcare and teaching institution they argue requires attention beyond the proposed investments for a new college block, hostels and infrastructure projects and an urgent parallel roadmap to modernise clinical services and embrace advances in biomedical engineering and medical technology.
Former GMC Pathology HoD, Dr Roque Wiseman Pinto has pointed to the State's glaring gap in cancer care as an example.
Dr Pinto, who currently heads the Asian Society of Cytopathology, has over the last few months repeatedly pointed to GMC's Radiotherapy Department continuing to rely on a cobalt therapy machine that is nearly three decades old when globally it has shifted towards far more precise systems such as Linear Accelerators, image-guided radiotherapy and stereotactic radiosurgery.
"Technology is now central to modern medicine. Upgrading infrastructure is important, but upgrading medical equipment is equally critical for patient care," a serving assistant professor at the GMC told The Goan, even as he welcomed Sawant's appeal to the institution's HoDs to periodically identify requirements for equipment and submit proposals to the government.
Several other GMC faculty members noted that investment in advanced diagnostic and therapeutic equipment can significantly improve treatment outcomes and cut down the need for patients to travel outside Goa.
The issue is particularly evident in oncology with Goa, which just last week made cancer a notifiable disease, reporting an estimated 1,700 new cases annually.
"Many of these cancer patients require advanced radiation therapy. They have to go either to Manipal hospital or to Belagavi, Mumbai or Bengaluru due to limitations at the GMC," another senior doctor said.
The consensus among most of these healthcare professionals is that the Rs 500 crore upgrade announced by the government presents an opportunity to reposition GMC as a future-ready medical institution.
Beyond radiotherapy, experts say modernisation is needed across multiple departments through advanced imaging systems, digital pathology, robotics-assisted procedures, artificial intelligence-assisted diagnostics and integrated patient data systems.
The case for technological transformation at the GMC comes even as the State government is pushing for digitisation of services there to allow patients to access consultations and medical reports digitally, reducing unnecessary visits to the hospital.
The doctors The Goan spoke to see such initiatives as the first step towards a broader shift.
"Healthcare worldwide is increasingly driven by biomedical engineering, precision medicine and digitally integrated systems. GMC must prepare itself for that leap," said a senior consultant associated with the institution.
Many believe that the proposed investment could become a defining moment if a substantial portion is channelled towards replacing obsolete equipment and acquiring modern technologies at the GMC which incidentally proudly wears the badge of being Asia's first modern medical college when it was inaugurated as Escola Médico-Cirúrgica de Goa in mid-nineteenth century.
