Minister for Health & Family Welfare and others at the inauguration in NHAK on December 2. (Morung Photo)
First government hospital in Nagaland with blood component separation and level 2 trauma care
Morung Express News
Kohima | December 2
The Naga Hospital Authority Kohima (NHAK) got a major boost to its health delivery set up. It has finally received much needed equipments, which included blood component separation machine, drug susceptibility testing and a level-II Trauma Care Centre (TCC).
ith the addition, the NHAK, locally known as Naga Hospital, became the first government hospital in Nagaland to have the license for blood component separation and level-II TCC inhouse.
Minister for Health & Family Welfare, P Paiwang Konyak, at the inauguration on December 2, said the new facilities will provide multi-speciality approach to trauma victims and decreasing the rate of mortality and disability of the victims, and also, spread awareness, preparedness and response to such incidents. According to him, the much-needed license for blood components separation materialised as a result of equipments provided through the NHM and NHAK Authority.
In 2022-2023, the Minister informed that Nagaland collected 12,923 units of blood as against the national level target of 15,000. With the component separation unit in place, he expressed confidence that the patients will no longer have to go to Dimapur to collect platelets or fresh frozen plasma.
He said that 2023 has been particularly challenging for the patients requiring platelets transfusion, because of the Dengue outbreak, as platelets had to be collected from Dimapur.
With the Culture & Drug Susceptibility Laboratory in place now in NHAK, the Minister hoped that it will serve the purpose of detecting drug resistant tuberculosis cases in Nagaland.
The Minister also assured to arrange for installing Nucleic Acid Test (NAT) facility, soon.
He called upon all health service providers to ensure that ‘Detect, Treat, Build and Prevent’ strategy is applied and put their best efforts to achieve TB free Nagaland, as per the national target to eliminate TB by 2025.
Trauma Care Centre
The Minister informed that the 350-bed NHAK, which has Referral Status, has been selected as Level II Trauma Centre, and will now provide definitive care for severe trauma victims. For this, he said emergency physicians, surgeons, orthopaedicians and anaesthetists have already been stationed to cater to the needs of the trauma victims.
The Level III Trauma Centre in Dimapur District Hospital with a bed capacity of 100 to 200 beds will now provide initial evaluation and stabilization to trauma patients. Level I Trauma Centre is only for Medical College Hospitals with more than 500 beds, he informed.
Citing the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways data, which ranked Nagaland 24th among all the States in India with respect to trauma injuries during 2019 to 2022, Konyak said that there was a desperate need in the state for a proper dedicated trauma care center to cater to this ever-growing spectrum but a neglected area.
He was optimistic that the Trauma Team at NHAK will be able to attend to traumatic injuries more dedicatedly and efficiently.
Meanwhile, the Minister said that with the new facilities in place, the Health Department must aim at making significant improvements to health delivery.
Commissioner & Secretary, V Kezo termed the NHAK as an “epitome of what a hospital should be.”
While terming the medical sector as one where mistakes cannot be afforded, he urged the medical professionals to set new standards in health care delivery system, wherein the NHAK has potential to become a hub for super specialty in the northeast. The Minister along with the health officials earlier inspected the new semi-private cabin block in the NHAK.
