The PGI has too many patients. Can you do anything to spread out the load?
You're right. PGI does not have the facilities to cope with the number of patients that pours in here. At the same time we can not deny medical treatment to them. Many more medical facilities are needed to reduce the burden on any one. Ideally, for every 1,000 people a city should have 1 hospital bed but here in Chandigarh we have just .7 bed per thousand.

What's the solution?
PGI is a referral hospital, which means that patients come from not just the UT but from adjoining states as well. This problem will go on till we have enough hospitals.

How about creating more facilities? Are there any new projects coming up?
By 2002 PGI will have 1,500 beds that's only 400 more than we have now but it's some improvement. Within six months, the OPD will shift to the new complex coming up on the campus of the old Command Hospital. The government has also approved a Cardiac Centre and Eye Centre.

Recently the operation theatres remained closed for more than a month. What's the PGI doing to solve the surgery tangle?
The old leaking drain pipes were the problem. Now the government has approved a modern operation theatre complex and work on it is likely to start shortly.