The family of Hitesh and Meeta Anadkat has handed over a state of the art Pediatric Accident and Emergency Unit at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital in Blantyre.
Hitesh Anadkat who is the founder of First Capital Bank (FCB), made the handover last Friday on 4th November at a monumental, life-changing event, as part of the project is said to have completed.
In their remarks, the Anadkat family said their family thought of funding the multimillion kwacha project as a way of complementing government’s efforts towards improving the country’s health sector.
The family said it has always been so painful for them to be seeing children at the hospital and the country at large suffering as a result of inadequate facilities to provide for their care, hence the idea to fund the construction of the unit.
“We are honoured to be a part of this legacy that will leave a lasting impact on the Malawian nation for years to come. It’s painful and unacceptable to see the children suffer without adequate facilities, we had to, in fact we needed to. We are a Malawian family,” said the Anadkats.
According to Head of Pediatric Accident and Emergency Unit at QECH Dr Josephine Langton, the facility has already decongested the main Accident and Emergency (A&E) building and says this will ensure that children receive life saving treatment and care upon arrival at the hospital.
Langton who was at a loss of words for the gesture, said she was eternally grateful and could not fully express her gratitude to the Anadkat family for making it their life’s mission to give what they have.
Concurrently, the Hospital Director, Dr Samson Mndolo, while thanking the Anadkat family said with part of the unit already in use, the hospital will now be able to be efficiently provide ailing children the urgent attention and treatment they deserve.
The facility whose walls are beautifully clad with hand painted murals, comprises several modern treatment areas that include a triage area, where children are assessed upon arrival and depending on the nature of the case, treatment is provided in one of the many private rooms.
Adjacent to the seating area, is a newly built and functioning high dependency unit (HDU), which is a breath of fresh air to both, patients and clinical staff alike.
Alongside that, there is the children’s mortuary, one of its kind, which was built and designed with careful detail and thought, such as the memorable wall mural that provides a semblance of much needed calm during the loss of a child.
It is reported that annually, the Queens Pediatric Unit caters for around 100,000 children as outpatients while over 25,000 children are admitted annually with approximately 10 children requiring resuscitation every hour.
The total cost of the whole project is estimated at MK600 million and it is further indicated that the operations in the new building will be enhanced too as piped oxygen is on offer to curb preventable deaths of children.
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