The Telangana state government in India has inaugurated its first Mother and Child Hospital (MCH) at the Gandhi Hospital campus, marking a significant development in the state's public healthcare sector.
MCH, a super specialty facility, was opened by Health Minister T. Harish Rao and aims to provide comprehensive medical services to mothers and new-borns.
Costing about Rs520m ($6.25m) and featuring 200 beds, the hospital will offer maternity and neonatal care, including advanced facilities like ventilators and heart-testing machines.
With this inauguration, the Gandhi Hospital's total bed capacity has risen to 500.
The government plans to establish more MCHs, expanding the initiative's reach.
Furthermore, the health minister also introduced 33 neonatal ambulances equipped with essential medical tools to provide prompt infant medical assistance.
In a separate event, a new Emergency Response Centre (ERC) was launched, merging health helplines 108, 102, and 104 to streamline and optimise emergency medical services, employing real-time monitoring and GPS technology.
According to The Hindu, the ground floor includes essential facilities such as an outpatient (OP) ward, laboratory, x-ray services, antenatal care unit, and pharmacy.
The first floor features a 32-bed unit with a high dependency (HD) section for intensive monitoring, along with a dedicated labor, delivery, recovery (LDR) ward.
The second floor has 23 beds and LDR wards, while the third floor provides 60 beds and antenatal care facilities. The fourth floor offers 60 beds for post-natal care.
In the fifth floor, there are 25 beds for an IVF Centre, a step-down room, Special Newborn Care Unit (SNCU), and a Kangaroo Mother Care centre encouraging vital skin-to-skin contact between premature infants and mothers.
The sixth floor houses a post-operative ward and medical ICU wards, while the seventh floor accommodates an advanced operation theatre and post-operative recovery areas.
In the seven storey, MCH will begin offer outpatient services right away, with a comprehensive range of services gradually being introduced within a month.
