Charaka Hospital opens in Shivajinagar, super-speciality OPD at just Rs 10

Bengaluru: With four major super-speciality services, the five-storey, 150-bed Charaka Government Super-Speciality Hospital, Shivajinagar, is finally ready. 

The hospital was inaugurated by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Deputy Chief Minister DK Shivakumar, Medical Education Minister Dr Sharan Prakash Patil and Shivajinagar MLA Rizwan Arshad on Monday. 

The hospital was under the BBMP before 2019 and was converted to a Covid Care Centre during the pandemic, following which the Medical Education Department took over to convert it into a super-speciality hospital. 

The ground floor has the OPD, with different rooms for various specialities, including plastic surgery, cardiology urology, nephrology and neurosurgery, besides an injection room. 

Besides casualty wards and a minor OT, the registration desk at the entrance of the ground floor also has separate counters to enable a smoother registration process for women, senior citizens and disabled people. 

The first two floors have the duty rooms and general wards, while the third floor has the ICU and operation theatres. 

The hospital has two operation theatres, 25 ICU beds, a cath lab for heart conditions, five emergency rooms, nine semi-special rooms and six special rooms, noted Dr Srikanth HM, Liason Officer, Shri Atal Bihari Vajpayee Medical College and Research Institute, to which the Charaka Hospital is affiliated. 

Currently, there are two consultants each for cardiology and plastic surgery and one consultant each for neurosurgery and urology, the latter of whom has been shifted from Bowring Hospital. Ten to 12 junior residents from Bowring Hospital will be posted at Charaka Hospital from Tuesday onwards. 

The OPD will be opened to the public on Tuesday, but OTs and the cardiac units will need to be fumigated and sanitised before being accessible in the next few days, Dr Srikanth told DH. 

Patients will have to pay a fixed charge of Rs 10 to avail OPD services. Within the next few days, the hospital will fix the rates of all other surgical and treatment services after reviewing the rates in other super-speciality hospitals, according to officials. 

Patients who do not have a BPL card or a caste certificate will be eligible for treatment under the CM's fund, he said, while BPL card holders can avail free treatment once admitted under the Ayushman Bharat Arogya Karnataka scheme. 

"We are signing an MoU soon with the BBMP and police to allow them to get free treatment here. We will most probably do this with other departments as well," Dr Srikanth said. 

Keep hospital clean: CM

Instructing hospital authorities to ensure cleanliness on the hospital premises, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah noted that poor and lower middle class people depend on government hospitals as they cannot pay up lakhs of rupees in hospital bills.

"Charaka Hospital will provide quality healthcare to the people of this area," he said.