Improving Healthcare in North Bengal: New Services at Jalpaiguri Medical College and Siliguri District Hospital

The duty of launching new facilities and services at the Jalpaiguri Medical College and Hospital and the Siliguri District Hospital has been taken on by the state health department.

Soon, the Siliguri facility will include more ticket counters for the outpatient departments (OPDs) and a 24-hour pathology laboratory service. Recently, the blood bank at the Jalpaiguri facility was upgraded to a regional center for blood transfusions.

The critical care unit is the only location where the Siliguri District Hospital's superintendent, Chandan Ghosh, said that they now provide 24-hour pathology lab service.

"We want to open up the lab's facilities to other departments. In order to shorten the line of patients and their relatives, the hospital will also create five extra ticket counters for OPDs, according to Ghosh.

Pregnant moms, returning patients, elderly citizens, persons with physical disabilities, and male and female patients will all have their own counters.

Approximately two thousand tickets are provided daily by the counters to people who see physicians in the outpatient departments. About 1,200 of them are new patients, with the remainder being return patients.

"The hospital provides good service, as evidenced by the fact that about one-third of the patients at the OPDs are repeat customers," said Ghosh.

Authorities from the medical college claimed that the blood bank at the Jalpaiguri facility has been upgraded to a transfusion center.

Vice-principal of the medical college Kalyan Khan said, "The center has eight blood banks under its jurisdiction, which makes it the largest regional blood transfusion center in north Bengal."

He mentioned a proposal to install breathalyzers to stop intoxicated individuals from coming into campus and starting trouble.