Award at the Sishu Bhavan in Cuttack. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Nov. 27: The paediatric wing of SCB Medical College and Hospital has been shifted to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel Postgraduate Institute of Paediatric Studies, better known as Sishu Bhavan.

An official source said that out of the three units of paediatric wing (general paediatrics), two had been merged with Sishu Bhavan, which has become an annex of SCB Medical College and Hospital from last October.

The two units of paediatrics, consisting of 60 beds, have been merged with the existing seven units at Sishu Bhavan to make it a full-fledged postgraduate teaching and training centre of excellence.

With the merger, the total bed strength at Sishu Bhavan has now increased to 416 from the existing 356 beds.

At present, a special newborn care unit and a casualty unit are functioning at SCB. These two units treat newborns as well as the emergency cases.

“Two paediatric units of SCB have been merged with Sishu Bhavan to make it an unified unit of postgraduate centre of excellence,” said Sishu Bhavan superintendent Nirajan Mohanty.

Another Sishu Bhavan official said that a six-bed unit for treatment of super-specialty services in cardiology, nephrology and haematology had already started.

Besides, a high-risk newborn clinic is already catering to the medical needs of various patients at Sishu Bhavan.

The merger is likely to pave way for development of a postgraduate superspecialty with adult superspecialty services as there was inconvenience in postgraduate teaching earlier because the same departments were divided in two places — at SCB and Sishu Bhavan.

There are plans to connect Sishu Bhavan and SCB with an advance conveyance system in the form of ambulance and the newly-launched 108 services for patient transportation.

Another Sishu Bhavan official said with the merger of paediatric units, the neonatal bed strength had also increased to 70 from 50 bed.

Neonatal mortality can be reduced as there is a proposal to further increase the bed capacity to 100 with assistance from the National Rural Health Mission.