Work is underway to set up a 12-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Hazaribagh Medical College and Hospital (HMCH), which is expected to be completed in the next few days.

Eight ventilators for the facility have been donated by National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), while the district administration has procured four of them using the District Mineral Foundation Trust (DMFT) fund.

HMCH gets patients from Chatra, Koderma, Ramgarh and Ramgarh districts. The hospital was in need of an advanced ICU facility as various patients died en route to Ranchi after doctors, left with no option, had to refer critical patients to the capital. Local residents too had been demanding an ICU at the hospital.

Officials of district administration said the DMFT fund was used to purchase four ventilators and machines to set up the advanced ICU facility at HMCH.

Deputy commissioner Bhuvnesh Pratap Singh had also requested NTPC to provide ventilators and other required equipment for the same. A NTPC officer said they had purchased eight ventilators and equipment costing Rs 58.8lakh.

Civil surgeon Sanjay Kumar said the work is being carried out on the first floor of the medical ward building at HMCH. He said the 12-bed ICU will improve the hospital, adding that two doctors, Nikhil Anand and Aman Kumar Sinha, were given the task to check all the 12 ventilators and equipment. They gave a report confirming that all machines were working properly, he added.

Kumar said NTPC has launched the work installing pipelines to supply oxygen at each of these beds. He said setting up of this ICU is going on as per the guidelines of Medical Council of India.

Although HMCH has been designated a coronavirus hospital, both Covid and non-Covid patients can be admitted at the time of emergency, Kumar said.