Jamshedpur, Oct 8:  The district administration of West Singhbhum and Tata Steel Foundation signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today, to provide advanced medical equipment and increase the capacity of government healthcare centres in the district.

This is part of the five-year MoU signed between West Singhbhum district administration and Tata Steel Foundation for enhancing healthcare services by strengthening government healthcare institutions. This includes a comprehensive plan to support the district with critical medical equipment, renovation of existing health infrastructure and building capacities of functionaries of Department of Health in the district.

The healthcare upgradation will include government healthcare centres in remote areas where significant gaps exist in healthcare facilities. After undertaking several large-scale public health interventions during COVID19 pandemic which included setting up free COVID Care Hospitals for the community, setting up oxygen plants for government hospitals and COVID vaccination of more than 2.5 lakh people in Jharkhand, Tata Steel Foundation will now be providing several life-saving medical equipment to West Singhbhum district administration to benefit the citizens of the district.

Speaking on the occasion, Sourav Roy, Chief Executive Officer, Tata Steel Foundation, said: “Healthcare has always been one of our priority areas and our learning from the COVID experience has been to look at creating systemic changes and addressing infrastructure gaps for communities in Jharkhand which currently have the least access to advanced medical care. We are committed to addressing the needs at West Singhbhum and are hopeful that patients and the community at large will now receive enhanced medical care close to their places of stay.”

Advanced medical equipment and hospital furniture worth almost 2 Crores will be provided to the district administration. This includes 100 advanced ICU bed sets and several critical and life-saving medical equipment such as HFNO (High Flow Nasal Oxygen) equipment, NIV (Non-Invasive Ventilators), 20 ICU Monitors, Defibrillators, 100 Oxygen regulators, Syringe Pumps, 100 cardiac trolleys, 100 saline stands and several other critical medical equipment. With the view to improve overall patient care, 10 wheelchairs, hydraulic patient trolleys, refrigerators, several almirahs and other ancillary hospital items have also been provided to the district to upgrade healthcare centres in the district.

The supply of these critical equipment will lead to increase the bed capacity in the district and contribute to better access to high quality treatment for all citizens of the district.