India to spend $8.4 million for complete renovation of IGM Hospital

Indian government has said today that $8.4 million (Rf 129.53 million) will be spent on complete renovation of Indira Gandhi Memorial Hospital (IGMH).

First Secretary Political and SAARC PS Karthigeyan said that the renovation work will begin shortly, and that it is not known how much time it will take to complete.

He said that the hospital will be refurbished to the extent that by the end of the work, it will seem like a new hospital. Minimising interference with hospital services will be considered when conducting the renovation work.

“This is a special project for India. India still sees IGMH as the most important symbol of the good relations between India and Maldives. Even though we say we are going to renovate the hospital, our plan is to almost entirely rebuild it,” Karthigeyan said.

He said that despite their focus on renewing just the infrastructure, it would improve the hospital’s services by a great deal. Also, Indian government has constantly been spending on improving IGMH’s services – for example, by training doctors, nurses, and other technical staff for IGMH ever since it opened.

“India has made a huge investment in IGMH. Not just in terms of equipment, but also in training doctors, nurses and other staff. Every year, India gives the chance for five Maldivian students to study to become doctors. So in the past 20 years, 25 doctors have been trained by India. All the money is spent by Indian government. Currently there are four Maldivian students studying for Masters in Medicine in India,” he said.

When asked for his opinion on how IGMH is operated, he said in spite of several difficulties, the hospital operates fine.

He added that India is ready to attend to any request made by Maldives to improve the services of IGMH.

An agreement was made to renovate IGMH, between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Maldivian government during Singh’s visit to Maldives to attend the 17th SAARC Summit.