Mangaluru: Finally, the government Lady Goschen Hospital was officially inaugurated on Saturday, March 2. Though the newly constructed hospital building was inaugurated today, some wards of the old building were already shifted to the new building couple of months ago.
The building inauguration was held in the presence of Union Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation D V Sadananda Gowda, Minister for Urban Development and Housing U T Khader and MP and former chief minister M Veerappa Moily.
After inaugurating the new building Minister D V Sadananda Gowda said, the union government has given importance to the health care sector. As the department of statistics and programme implementation has conducted a survey and found that the income of around 10 to 30 percent of a family is being spent on health issues, the union government has started generic medical stores, wherein around 905 medicines will be available at discounted rate of around 10 to 90 percent. A total of 5,400 generic medical stores are functioning across the country functioning now” he said.
Minister U T Khader thanked the Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Limited (MRPL) company for extending its cooperation for constructing the new building of Lady Goschen hospital under its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funds. He said, “The responsibility of MRPL does not end with the construction of the new building. MRPL should adopt this hospital to ensure quality medical services to the poor patients of eight districts of the state”, he opined.
M Veerappa Moily also backed the idea of Khader and said, “as the newly constructed hospital building is named as ‘ONGC-MRPL Anniversary Wing’, the MRPL should extend its cooperation to run this hospital. A committee headed by MRPL must be formed to take a final decision in this regard”, he said.
The six-storied building was constructed at the cost of Rs 41 crore, of which MRPL has given Rs 31 crore. The remaining Rs 10 crore was given by the state government.
Mangaluru South MLA Vedavyas Kamath presided over the programme. MP Nalin Kumar Kateel, Zilla Panchayat president Meenakshi Shanthigodu, former minister B Ramanath Rai, former MLA N Yogish Bhat, former minister Amaranath Shetty, District Health Officer Dr Ramakrishna Rao, MRPL Managing Director M Venkatesh, ONGC group General manager H L Prasad among others were present.
