Date:19/09/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/09/19/stories/2008091960700400.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

New Stanley building opened

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: The new building of Government Stanley College includes facilities for the outpatient block of Psychiatry Department besides lecture halls, examination halls and equipment such as MRI scan and tele-cobalt unit for the Oncology Department.

The buildings for the medical college cost Rs. 5 crore while the MRI scan and the Tele cobalt unit were installed at the cost of Rs. 7 crore. The OP block for Psychiatry Department was set up at the cost of Rs. 45 lakh.

Commissioning the buildings, Finance Minister K. Anbazhagan urged the hospital authorities to make the best use of the equipment.

The hospital had a history of helping the poor and continued to do so, he said.

Any deficiency in services would be set right, he maintained.

The government would build the proposed hostels soon, said Health Minister M. R. K. Panneerselvam. In the next one year, over 265 taluk hospitals would be upgraded. So far the government had purchased Rs. 249 crore worth medicines.

The government had procured 365 ambulances to be handed over to the EMRI 108 project and Rs. 36 crore had been set aside for equipping the vans with emergency equipment, he said.

The three medical colleges in the city would get a digital library, said Health Secretary V.K. Subburaj.

There was pressure from the Central government on the State to provide land for a geriatric hospital, a blood bank of international standards and a pharmaceutical unit.