MSRDC may get charitable trust to run E-way trauma centre

The trauma centre on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway is ready for over three years now. File pic

After repeated failures over the past three years in getting a private medical company or hospital to run the trauma centre at Ozarde along the Mumbai-Pune Expressway, the Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC) is now looking at getting a private charitable trust to operate the centre.

Confirming the development, an MSRDC official said, "We have invited an expression of interest (EOI) for appointment of a charitable trust, which will operate and maintain the trauma care centre at Ozarde. We hope to get a positive response this time."

According to sources, MSRDC had invited an EOI for operating the trauma centre for the first time in October 2014. Though the centre is ready for more than three years now, MSRDC has not got any response from companies for operating it. Also, no firm has come forward to run the air-ambulance service, forcing MSRDC to delay it further. In the same year, the corporation had also written a letter to the Maharashtra health department, asking them to provide help in running the centre.

Apart from this, the MSRDC had also invited tenders for a quick response vehicle (QRV) on the Yashwantrao Chavan Expressway and called for a request for qualification (RFQ) for a four-level trauma centre building, parking bay and helipad services on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway. MSRDC sources said that the trauma centre, spread over eight acres, was primarily set up to provide treatment to accident victims, as they have to travel around 45 minutes to reach Lokmanya Tilak hospital in Nigdi. Because of these many of the victims bleed to death on the way.

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