Traffic outside the district hospital building.
Photo Credits: Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO
Hospicio patients and healthcare workers alike may now breathe easy at the South Goa district hospital after the shifting of the Out-Patient Department (OPDs), besides the medicine, maternity and other wards to the imposing and spacious building in the commercial capital.
Traffic snarls and parking woes have literally now become the order of the day outside the hospital building for want of provision for vehicular parking for visitors and patients at the district hospital.
Take note, the building basement has come handy for the 100-odd doctors, nurses and para-medics working at the hospital to meet their parking requirements. There’s, however, no dedicated parking provision for the visitors inside the complex as a result of which parking has spilled outside, alongside the highway road, causing traffic congestion.
Security personnel manning the building entrance make sure the visitors park their vehicles outside, leaving citizens to fend for themselves to find parking space.
Consider this: On Monday over a dozen vehicles, including auto rickshaws and private vehicles were parked along the highway for want of parking slots inside or outside the building.
The uneven space along the compound wall came in handy for the visitors to park their vehicles, but the space proved inadequate to accommodate the vehicles of visitors and public transport, leaving the owners with no option than to park vehicles along the Highway.
A similar situation had arisen last year when Hospicio OPDs and other departments were shifted to the district hospital building. Sadly, the space outside the building complex has not been developed for parking, nor has the space on the rear side of the building utilized for vehicular parking.
Fears are being raised that vehicular parking may spill on to the narrow road leading to the Presentation Convent school, which may create traffic bottleneck on the road.
When The Goan called up Hospicio medical Superintendent Dr Deepa Corriea to shed light on the parking arrangements for the patients and visitors to the hospital, she was categorical in saying the private vehicles have to be parked outside the complex. “There’s no space for vehicular parking inside the hospital complex. Our health care workers, including doctors, numbering over 100 use the basement for parking. There’s absolutely no space inside for vehicular parking”, Dr Deepa asserted.
Visitors, however, demanded that the government should open the space at the rear side of the complex for parking a la the South Goa district Collectorate. ‘Citizens visiting the Collectorate are allowed to park vehicles inside. A similar arrangement should be put in place inside the district hospital complex for vehicular parking”, remarked a visitor.
Vehicles parked alongside the main road for want of parking space.
Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO: If visitors and patients to the South Goa district hospital had to literally hunt for space for vehicular parking, the problem is set to aggravate further in the coming days.
For, the PWD (sewerage) has plans to use the space on the front side of the hospital complex to construct a road for diversion of highway traffic to facilitate laying of an underground sewerage line on the main road. Though the PWD was scheduled to start the road diversion work around March early this year, the work has been hit by delay, sources said.
Even officials in private say visitors to the hospital may find it hard to get parking space outside the complex as and when the existing open space is converted for a temporary road diversion by the PWD. And, given the slow pace of the sewerage work, officials say it may take months for the PWD to complete the underground line laying work.
The only space outside the complex occupied by two and four-wheelers.
Santosh Mirajkar
MARGAO: Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) General Manager Jude Carvalho said development of space outside the front side of the complex for parking will now be delayed with the PWD planning to use the space for road diversion.
He said the GSIDC had prepared estimates for developing the space outside the hospital for vehicular parking. Jude, however, said the work cannot be tendered since the PWD has decided to use the space for road diversion in order to take up work on underground sewerage line on the main road.
The GSIDC General Manager, however, hastened to add that the Corporation will soon take up the work of development for parking space on the rear side the hospital building. “There is space behind the hospital building which can be used for parking. We had drawn up plans to lay interlocking pavers and use the space for parking”, he added.
