Night shelters to come up at 15 hospitals in Bengal

Kolkata: The state Housing department has taken up a major project in developing night shelters for family members of patients in 15 hospitals in both North and South Bengal districts.

A visit to any referral hospital in the city and district or sub-division hospitals in other parts of the state, will show that many people need to spend the entire day in the hospital itself, as their near and dear ones are undergoing treatment.

Need of shelters for such people within the hospital premises itself were assessed long back. Though it had come up in some of the hospitals in the city, there was no such move to develop such infrastructure in district hospitals due to the lackadaisical attitude of the erstwhile Left Front government.

After the change of guard in the state, the Mamata Banerjee government has given a new lease of life to the state-run hospitals, by improving the infrastructure.

The state Housing department has already successfully completed construction of night shelters at NRS Medical College and Hospital, Diamond Harbour Hospital and Baruipur Sub-Divisional Hospital and now, the department has identified 15 hospitals where similar infrastructure will be developed.

The hospitals where the night shelters for family members of patients will be constructed include RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, TL Jaiswal Hospital in Howrah, Uluberia Sub-divisional Hospital, Suri District Hospital, Midnapore Medical College and Hospital, College of Medicine and Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Hospital in Kalyani, Asansol District Hospital, Jhargram District Hospital, Barasat District Hospital and Tamluk District Hospital.

In South Bengal, the hospitals where nigh shelters will be developed include North Bengal Medical College and Hospital, Malda Medical College and Hospital and Jalpaiguri District Hospital.

The Housing department will construct a four-storeyed building in each of the hospitals as night shelter and the building will be having two separate blocks for men and women.

There will be accommodation facilities for around 100 people in the night shelters that will be constructed in district hospitals and the same in sub-divisional hospitals will be around 50.

The work for construction of the night shelters will start in the next two to three months, said a senior official of the department, adding that "the average cost of constructing and providing necessary furniture in each of the night shelters would be Rs 3.5 crore on an average."

Many patients need to remain admitted in hospital for months. In such cases, at least one person from the patient's family need to be in the hospital at night. The construction of night shelters in 15 important hospitals across the state, will be beneficial to such people.