P. M. Hospital

Visva-Bharati
Santiniketan

 Santiniketan is a place where Rabindranath Tagore started his Ashram School in 1901. Later on, he established the Visva-Bharati University in 1921 for advanced study and research. As Santiniketan is situated in rural Bengal, far away from Kolkata, he felt the special need of health services for scholars, researchers, students coming from different parts of the country and abroad, and also for others living in and around Santiniketan. To meet this need the building of Pearson Memorial Hospital  started in 1927 at Santiniketan. W. W. Pearson was a friend of India and died at a young age.

But, the growth of this hospital falls much short of expectation. As a consequence, the health of the scholars, researchers, students and others in the University could not be assured. This directly affects the education in the University. Free medical treatment is provided to all the students (both residential and day scholar) of the University by the Pearson Memorial Hospital, a University hospital located at Santiniketan and another Hospital located at Sriniketan.

At present, P. M. Hospital has following infrastructure, Doctors with position, staff strength and facilities:

1.       Beds                                      : 35

2.       Services                             

: a) OPD service
: b) Emergency Medical Service
: c) Indoor Patient’s Care    
: d) Operations.

1. General Surgery  2. Gynaecological Surgery

: e) Pathological Laboratory for general investigations of blood & serum, stool & urine, sputum.
: f) X-ray,
: g) ECG
: h) Dispensary for medicine disbursement 
: i) Ambulance Service
: j) Participation in National Health Programmes
: k) Sanitary Health service

3.       Doctors Administration:                

A. Chief Medical Officer (Admn.) : Dr. S.S. Debnath.
B. Medical Superintendent-----One

Specialist Medical Officers: Four

1. Medicine
2. Surgery
3. Gynaecology
4. Anesthesiology

General duty Medical officer: eight

• Dr C S  Kundu
  
• Dr D Ghosh Dastidar
• Dr Santosh Das
  
• Dr A Chatterjee
  
• Dr A Dasgupta
  
• Dr M  Saha
  
• Dr A M Das
  
• Dr S Samanta
  

4. Staff Nurses: 12 with other supporting employees.

5. In addition, there is one more Dispensary with two more general duty Medical Officers situated at Sriniketan, the agriculture and rural reconstruction education centre of the university.

Our strength:

1. We have four regular specialist medical officer and provide Primary as well as secondary level of health care. Such facilities are not available in any university system.
   
2. We provide emergency medical service round the clock.
3. We provide ambulance service round the clock.
4. We have our own investigation facilities to reasonable extend.
5. We provide health service through our rural reconstruction programme.
6. Peaceful environment and strong support by our administration and employees for continuous improvement of the health services.

Our weakness: 

1. We are situated in the rural Bengal where tertiary health care facilities are not available.
2. Any seriously ill patient suffering from head injury, cerebral or cardiac stroke, pulmonary edema or respiratory failure, etc. are to be transferred to Kolkata or Durgapur on emergency basis for treatment. Often there is irreparable damage to the health of the patient before the proper treatment is obtained from the tertiary level centre.
3. As the medical service is non-teaching and supportive system in the university, liberal fund allocation and new post creation for the hospital is uphill task.
4. As a consequence, health in the university cannot be fully assured to attract renowned teachers, scholars and others with health problem.

 Among the all odds, to improve the health facilities in the university, administration has decided for up-gradation of hospital facilities under the XIth plan and accordingly, a new building of hospital is coming up. It is also decided to go for Private Public Partnership to improve the university health service to the tertiary health care.