Union Health Minister Shri J.P. Nadda conducted a comprehensive review of Lady Hardinge Medical College (LHMC) and its associated hospitals, Smt. Sucheta Kriplani Hospital and Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital, focusing on healthcare infrastructure strengthening, specialized clinical services, medical education, research, and patient care.
The review highlighted the ongoing augmentation project at Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital that will significantly expand its capacity from 394 to 894 total beds, increase ICU capacity from 40 to 200 beds, and expand operation theatres from 4 to 12. The construction work is currently underway and aims to strengthen tertiary and super-speciality paediatric care while expanding capacity for undergraduate, postgraduate, and super-speciality medical education and training.
Minister Nadda emphasized a patient-centric and future-oriented approach for all projects, requiring planning and design to incorporate expertise from leading institutions while ensuring high construction quality and strict timeline monitoring. He stressed the need for concurrent infrastructure expansion and recruitment of nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals, and called for timely escalation of approval and clearance issues to the Ministry. The Minister advocated for a comprehensive master plan with long-term institutional vision combining immediate priorities with phased development for the coming decades, and encouraged exploring private-sector expertise and partnerships where appropriate while maintaining focus on quality, efficiency, and patient care.
During the visit, the Minister inspected the state-of-the-art Skill Lab at LHMC, a comprehensive multidisciplinary simulation-based training facility providing hands-on competency-based learning in a safe environment. The facility features dedicated simulation areas for ICU, surgical skills, simulated OT, Obstetrics OT, NICU, trauma, ENT, and ophthalmology, along with briefing/debriefing areas and task trainers for procedural skills. The lab serves as an integrated platform for undergraduate and postgraduate training, procedural skills development, faculty development, multidisciplinary team training, and competency-based assessment, supporting clinical and surgical proficiency, decision-making, teamwork, communication, and crisis-resource management while enhancing patient safety.
The Minister also visited the recently functional Augmented Level III-B Neonatal Care Centre at Kalawati Saran Children's Hospital, which features 80 intensive care beds handling more than 10,000 deliveries and 2,500 NICU admissions annually with overall survival exceeding 93%. The neonatal facility provides advanced services including high-frequency oscillatory ventilation (HFOV), inhaled nitric oxide therapy, therapeutic hypothermia, advanced monitoring, and comprehensive respiratory support. The new NICU-B comprises 7 NICU beds, 8 HDU beds, 15 Kangaroo Mother Care (KMC) beds, and 12 mothers' cots, with emphasis on family-integrated care, kangaroo mother care, and breastfeeding support.
The review meeting was attended by Shri Sunil Kumar Barnwal (CEO, National Health Authority), Dr. L.G. Krishna (DGHS), Smt. G.S. Chitra (Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare), Dr. Himani Ahluwalia (Director, LHMC), Dr. Arvind Kumar (Medical Superintendent, LHMC), Dr. Vikram Dutta (Medical Superintendent, LHMC), and Dr. Sujata Gautam (Principal, LHMC).