Berhampur: The central intensive care unit (ICU) at the MKCG Medical College and Hospital was jointly inaugurated by the dean and principal, MKCG Medical College, Radha Madhav Tripathy and superintendent of the Hospital, Charan Panda, on Thursday

The 20-bed intensive care unit was announced by the state government six years ago. "However, absence of a liquid oxygen plant and ancillary gas pipelines were the main reasons for the delay in opening the intensive care unit," said the superintendent of the hospital.

MLA Berhampur, Ramesh Chandra Chau Patanik, who is also a physician, had moved the government for the oxygen plant and the ICU. "I urged the implementing agency to expedite construction of the oxygen project," said the Berhampur MLA.

Expressing his satisfaction over the opening of the intensive care unit, he said: "A central ICU, intensive therapy or treatment unit is necessary for good health management." The then health minister Prasanna Acharya had announced in the State Legislative Assembly in 2011 that a central intensive care unit will be set up in the MKCG Hospital. Funds worth Rs 6.9 crore had been sanctioned for the intensive care unit building. The road and buildings department was assigned to construct the building.

The hospital had only four ICUs at the department of medicine in the old indoor building earlier, which was insufficient as the hospital has 1,081 beds at various wards.

Consequently, patients had to wait for a long time to get admitted in the intensive care unit, while emergency cases had to be referred to private hospitals often, said a junior doctor.

As far as emergency cases like heart attacks are concerned, there is no other choice except for sending the patients to other hospitals. What adds to the woes of the patients and their kin is that there is no ICU facility in any of the private hospitals in Berhampur. So, the pati-ents are compelled to go to Visakhapatnam or Bhubaneswar.