A hospital off DL Khan Road in Bhowanipore that was non-functional since 2012 has been revamped. A multi-speciality OPD will start running from the healthcare facility from Tuesday.

The hospital was started in 1975, and it shut down around four or five years later. It was reopened in 1990 and closed down again in 2012.

Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital will be run jointly by the Liver Foundation, West Bengal — a not-for-profit, non-government organisation (NGO) focusing on liver diseases — and the Gurdwara Sant Kutiya on Harish Mukherjee Road.

The two-storey building has three OPD (outpatient department) rooms on the ground floor.

On the first floor, a male and a female ward, along with a high-dependency unit, are being set up.

There will be a blood sample collection facility whose analysis will be done at the Liver Foundation’s main hospital in Sonarpur.

Day care procedures like endoscopy, colonoscopy and ultrasonography will be available at the hospital.

“We are starting with the OPD from Tuesday. There will be day care procedures’ facilities. We have plans to start a 40-bed hospital in a year,” said Partha Sarathi Mukherjee, secretary of the Liver Foundation, West Bengal.

The OPD will have specialities like nephrology, hepatology, gastroenterology, gynecology and obstetrics, pulmonology and neurology, among others.

Swami Bodhasarananda, assistant general secretary, Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission, inaugurated the revamped hospital on Monday evening.

“It is the need of the hour that a third sector, the not-for-profit sector, starts offering accessible and affordable treatment to people. This sector is different from the government sector and the private sector. Setting up and running small hospitals is a good way forward,” said Abhijit Chowdhury, the chief mentor of the Liver Foundation, West Bengal.

Gurdwara Sant Kutiya, which used to run the hospital, shut it down in 2012 because of operational challenges.

“Gurdwara Sant Kutiya purchased the property in 1970s. This building used to be a guest house of the Burmah-Shell company. We bought it from them,” said Avtar Singh, the general secretary of Gurdwara Sant Kutiya.

“We started running a hospital there in 1975. It was run for four or five years and shut down. The hospital was reopened in 1990 and was operational till 2012, when it was shut down again. We have now teamed up with the Liver Foundation to revive the hospital once more,” said Singh.

Revamping and procuring new equipment has already cost about ₹3.5 crore, said
a senior functionary of the hospital.

“Our aim is not to make a profit. If we have any surplus revenue, it will be used for social work,” said Mukherjee.