The Planters’ Hospital. Picture by Suman Tamang

Darjeeling, June 3: The Darjeeling and Dooars Medical Association, popularly known as the Planters’ Hospital, was on the brink of closure eight months ago. Residents are now chipping in with funds to give a new lease of life to one of the best known hospitals in town.

The hospital, which is managed by a board of governors drawn from the tea industry and education institutes here, is one of a kind in north Bengal. All the profits made by it are pumped back into the hospital.

However, with the revenues from tea dipping sharply, the hospital could not even pay the salaries of its 50-odd employees in June and July 2003.

It was then that commercial houses and residents of the town stepped in to help. The hospital was able to set up an intensive care unit — the first of its kind in the town — and draw up a revival scheme.

“The ICU was set up at a cost of about Rs 3 lakh and the money came mainly through contributions by individuals and commercial houses of the town,” said P.D. Bhutia, medical superintendent of the hospital.

A sum of Rs 5 lakh is needed every month to run the hospital. This amount is largely drawn from seven schools and tea gardens who have entered into an agreement with the hospital. The schools pay the hospital Rs 800 per student annually and the tea gardens pay at the rate of Rs 70 per hectare.

The contributions from the gardens used to be around Rs 17 lakh, but the figure plummeted to Rs 1 lakh after most gardens did away with the services of the hospital a few years ago.

“We are depending on residents and more than 80 per cent of the patients admitted are local people,” said Father Van, the chairman of the hospital.

The hospital now plans to open a child care unit and set up facilities for dialysis. The 30-bed hospital has drawn up another scheme to make its services more affordable. “Senior citizens are being given a discount of 15 per cent after they get registered for a nominal rate of Rs 20. We also give 15 per cent discount to cancer patients,” said Bhutia.