Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar announced on Tuesday, September 21, that Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai has granted his approval for the construction of a super-specialty hospital in the Uttara Kannada district. After a meeting with district elected officials including district in-charge minister Kota Srinivasa Poojari, Minister Sudhakar made the announcement.
“Our government is committed to ensuring the availability of quality healthcare services in Uttara Kannada district. Location and other modalities regarding setting up of hospital will be discussed with the Chief Minister. The proposal has been sent to the finance department. After discussing with CM the proposal will be tabled in the cabinet,” he said.
The meeting with elected members covered every area of the district's healthcare infrastructure, including hiring new staff, upgrading primary care facilities, and purchasing new equipment, the health minister said. After the current Assembly session, Sudhakar said he will travel to Uttara Kannada to assess the district's healthcare infrastructure.
The government's decision was prompted by an online campaign on Twitter following an accident in Karnataka's Udupi district in July this year that claimed four lives after the ambulance they were riding in crashed into a toll plaza at Shiroor. When the ambulance was transporting a patient from Honnavar in Uttara Kannada district to a hospital in Kundapura in Udupi district, the accident happened. Twitter users clamoured for a super-specialty hospital in Uttara Kannada district, which has long struggled with inadequate medical facilities, by tweeting under the hashtag #NoHospitalNoVote.
Despite being one of the largest districts in Karnataka, residents of Uttara Kannada are forced to travel hundreds of kilometers to Goa or Udupi to avail of advanced medical treatments in cases of emergency.