Chengalpattu government hospital plagued by poor infrastructure

The Chengalpattu Government Hospital, one of the oldest district hospitals in the State, struggles with several infrastructure-related issues, including waste dumping on the campus.

The government hospital, once a part of the unified Kancheepuram and Chengalpattu districts, provides health care to thousands of patients from several villages in the district.

The hospital, which also houses the medical college, is the main health referral centre for road accident cases, as it has an advanced critical care unit. However, patients point to a number of problems they face at the hospital, including presence of dogs on the premises, poor drainage facility, and open dumping of plastic waste.

The main problem is the poor condition of the road linking the various departments, including the critical care, ophthalmology, and paediatrics centres, and the administrative block where the orthopaedics department also functions. R. Stanley, a caretaker for a patient in the Special Outpatient ward, said the interior road was filled with potholes, and had been in a badly damaged condition for several years.

The public also complain about stray dogs that are often seen roaming inside various departments, except the new building that houses the Critical Care unit, and the poor maintenance of public conveniences. The newly built public convenience has remained closed for several months.

Despite the construction of a new extended building, the hospital does not have proper concrete drain facility due to which the waste water flowing in the open and ultimately drains in the Kolavai lake, patients said. In the Traffic Accident and Emergency Initiative building the lifts also do not function as it is kept shut down for maintenance purposes.

The other problem the hospital faces is the huge amount of plastic waste dumped by the visitors, with the conservancy staff finding it difficult to safely remove them.

A senior official of the Chengalpattu Government Hospital said several representations were given on behalf of the hospital administration to the Public Works department (PWD) and the Chengalpattu district Collectorate for paving a new road.

But the road proposal had been rejected due to the project estimate being high at ₹50 lakh. At present the hospital administration has planned to pave the road through the Insurance fund, as the proposal to pave a new road through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) also did not take off.

Regarding the stray dogs menace, the hospital authorities point fingers at the patients themselves for creating this situation as they regularly feed the stray dogs and the failure of the Chengalpattu Municipality to remove them.