MARGAO
A notification to establish a rickshaw, taxi and motorcycle pilot stand towards the Mother Maria Clara road alongside the South Goa district hospital may be good news for the stakeholders.
For, the June 26 notification issued by the district magistrate has given the nod to set up the stand to facilitate the patients, visitors and relatives visiting the South Goa district hospital.
What about the patients and relatives of patients walking to the district hospital? The visitors and patients risk being knocked down on the road stretch by speeding vehicles for want of a dedicated pedestrian footpath, connecting the hospital to the adjoining district collectorate building.
The common man visiting the hospital after alighting at the KTC bus stand is the most affected as they walk the half-a-kilometre road to make it to the district hospital. For, while the stretch of the road between the KTC bus stand and the district collectorate has a pedestrian footpath, the stretch from the collectorate to the district hospital has no provision for a footpath.
In fact, with the shoulder of this road stretch being occupied by four-wheelers, visitors to the hospital are forced to walk on the main road to make it to the hospital.
Why the district has not taken up the construction of a dedicated pedestrian corridor, connecting the district hospital to the district collectorate building, to facilitate patients and relatives to walk to the hospital remains unknown.
This sounds surprising as a majority of the patients availing facilities at the district hospital are common men, who alight at the nearby KTC bus stand before walking down the road to reach the hospital. “Will the authorities wake up only after a life is lost in an accident on the road stretch? A pedestrian footpath is being built along the Old market-KTC bus stand-collectorate stretch of the highway. The same should be extended right up to the district hospital wherever possible,” remarked a visitor.
Accident-prone zone
What may come as a further surprise and raise questions over the absence of a dedicated pedestrian pathway from the stretch of the road from the district hospital to the district collectorate building is that the stretch, right opposite the plant nursery has been declared as an accident-prone zone. One comes across a warning board cautioning that the area is an accident-prone zone, only throwing up questions about why the district authorities have not built a dedicated pedestrian pathway.
A pedestrian wondered whether the accident-prone zone board has been installed at the site just to caution the motorists over vehicular accidents, questioning that the ground reality along the stretch ought to have spurred the authorities to ensure the safety of pedestrians walking down from the district hospital to the KTC bus stand.
Parking area in front of the hospital
It’s now over two years since the South Goa district hospital was commissioned after the shifting of the Hospicio operations into the imposing new building. The Goa State Infrastructure Development Corporation (GSIDC) has put in place parking amenities at the rear side of the district hospital. The plan to create a parking avenue in front of the hospital building in the parcel of land, between the main road and the hospital compound wall, however, is yet to take off to date.
A visit to the parking area revealed that a major portion of the parking space in front of the hospital was waterlogged after the heavy showers. That’s not all. The GSIDC’s plan to create a bus bay and parking amenities in the area running parallel to the hospital compound wall is yet to be implemented.
GSIDC sources informed that the agency had drawn up a parking plan in front of the district hospital but it could not be implemented as the Sewerage Infrastructure Development Corporation of Goa Ltd (SIDCGL) wanted to build a makeshift road running parallel to the compound wall to lay the North Main Trunk line on the main road.
Parking behind the hospital
Though the district hospital has provision for parking slots behind the hospital building, many a patient or relatives of patients visiting the hospital say they are forced to walk a long distance from the parking area to the hospital building.
Instead, many a patient and visitors prefer to park their vehicles in front of the hospital outside the compound wall. “The district hospital should open the rear side of the hospital building for patients and visitors as an entry point. The existing arrangement mandates the patients and visitors to park vehicles behind the hospital building and then walk back to the front side of the building to enter the hospital,” a visitor pointed out, as he wondered why visitors can't enter the hospital building through the rear side like the hospital staff.
