General manager (medical services) of Tata Main Hospital B. Ray at the Centre for Excellence. Picture by Srinivas

Jamshedpur, Jan. 14: Tata Main Hospital (TMH) would set-up a separate plastic surgery unit on its premises soon.

General manager (medical services) of the hospital B. Ray said they have started the process of appointing two plastic surgeons, which will be over by the end of February.

“We would have to assess the expertise of the plastic surgeons employed at TMH first before deciding on the facilities that would be extended. We want to start a separate plastic surgery department at TMH in the next few months,” said Ray.

At present, the burn care unit has the plastic surgery department in the hospital. The plastic surgeons at TMH operate mainly on burn patients.

TMH officials said general surgeons carry out plastic surgeries on burn patients when need rises.

“We had a qualified plastic surgeon in the burn care and plastic surgery department who retired six months ago. However, we want to set up a separate department soon,” said Ray.

Once the department comes up residents of the steel city would not be required to go to other places for plastic surgery. None of the hospital — government or private — in the steel city has a plastic surgery department till now. The facility is available in few hospitals at Ranchi and Calcutta.

Addressing reporters, Ray said the extension of timing from 9am to 6pm at the out patient department (OPD) would increase productivity of the resources available at TMH.

“After increase of timings at OPD, we have to ensure that none of the doctors are required to work more than the specified duty timings. We have made a little adjustment in lunch timings of the medical staff,” said Ray.

Earlier, doctors used to have single lunch session during which the OPD remained closed. Now the doctors would go in two batches (from 12pm-2pm and 2pm to 4pm) for lunch.

TMH senior officials said increase in OPD timings would be beneficial for the patients as the morning rush would decrease. They also said recently introduced telephonic registration in OPD for non-employees would also help in reducing the rush at OPD.

The new OPD timings have come into effect from Monday.