The Karnataka Government has decided to set up a Rs 150-crore super speciality hospital and a medical college in Bangalore which is likely to be commissioned before 2006-end.

The government has identified 50 acres of land near the Leprosy hospital on Magadi Road in Bangalore for the proposed 750-bedded super speciality facility. The Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS) has already volunteered to provide Rs 75 crore for the project.

A new government medical college will be attached to the new hospital for which the government has set aside Rs 25 crore. Apart from this, five new medical colleges are coming up at Hassan, Mandya, Belgaum, Raichur, Bidar and Belgaum, Iqbal Ansari, Medical Education minister, Government of Karnataka told Pharmabiz.

The government has also set aside Rs 122 crore to remodel its two leading healthcare facilities, Victoria Hospital and Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital. According to the master plan, the new outpatient and inpatient wards of 8 floors each, a new nursing school, and hostel building, a Post Graduate hostel building, auditorium, residential quarters for doctors and nurses will be added to the Bowring & Lady Curzon hospital in two phases at a cost of Rs 73 crore.

The master plan for the 104 year-old Victoria Hospital includes construction of two new blocks to accommodate 400 patients, a 300-bedded new causality, trauma emergency block, construction of additional floors to ENT and retina blocks, additional floors to PG, undergraduate and nursing students hostel. The plan also includes construction of new nurses quarters and an indoor stadium at Bangalore Medical College at a cost of Rs 48 crore.

In addition, basic infrastructure like water supply, toilets, effluent treatment plants, roads, parking facilities, street lights etc. will be improved at all the 12 government hospitals in the state. The Karnataka Power Transmission Corporation has donated Rs 12.5 crore for the hospital improvement programme.