Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital which has set up a new casualty block at a cost of Rs 9.8 crore, is still non functional because it has no equipments for diagnosis. Almost seven months after work on the building had been completed, the hospital is yet to open.

According to sources, the state government has not purchased a single piece of equipment for the casualty block and neither has called for tenders for any equipment.

The causality block, built at a cost of Rs 9.8 crore, is a four storied building which can accommodate 190 beds and is built on a total plinth area of 5,380 sq. metres. Even the inauguration of the building was pending.

Hospital authorities at Bowring Hospital said that they had not taken any steps to obtain equipments as the building had still not been handed over to them.

"The Bangalore Development Authority is yet to hand over the building," stated Dr Rajeev Shetty, Medical Superintend, Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital. "We have been asking the government to recruit the doctors and nurses for the new block which is not yet been done," he added.

Dr Shetty pointed out that the hospital was already facing a gross shortage of doctors and nurses and they would find it extremely difficult to operate the casualty block with out the necessary staging.

Meanwhile the hospital received a multi slice computerized tomography (Ct) scanner, which was gifted by the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences in Bangalore. The equipment can now deliver an image of the thorax abdomen and pelvis within 20 minutes.

According to Dr VS Acharaya, minister for medical education, government of Karnataka, all hospital in Karnataka coming under the government would be dealt with on a war footing immediately after the State Assembly session which comes to an end in the first week of August.