During the 2018-19 fiscal, the State Government will equip the ESI hospital in Coimbatore and the Government Hospital in Mettupalayam with CT scan machines, Health and Family Welfare Minister C. Vijaya Baskar said here on Saturday.

Addressing reporters at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital (CMCH) after inaugurating a Cath Lab, Cosmetology and Cosmetic Surgery Department, Audio Verbal Therapy facility and additional dialysis machines, the Minister said aside from the two CT scan machines, the Government would establish one more Cath Lab at the CMCH at a cost of ₹8 crore. It would be more sophisticated than what he had inaugurated on Saturday. Likewise, the Government would install a high-end MRI scan machine at the CMCH, which would scan in less than a minute. The one the hospital had took 20 minutes for a scan.

The objective of upgrading the CMCH and equipping it with more machines was to soon start heart and cadaver transplant surgeries, Mr. Baskar said.

As announced by the then Chief Minister Jayalalithaa, the Government was taking various steps to upgrade the CMCH. It had obtained ₹ 286 cr from Japan International Co-operation Agency.

Municipal Administration Minister S.P. Velumani said it had been an eight-year dream for the people of Coimbatore to have open heart surgery facilities at the CMCH. Five more dialysis machines were also inaugurated on Saturday taking the total machines at the CMCH to 15. This meant that 45 patients a day could undergo dialysis.

Earlier, speaking at the launch of “Organ Procurement and Transplantation Course - 2018” at PSG Institute of Medical Sciences and Research and PSG Hospitals, the Health Minister said Tamil Nadu was the trendsetter in health sector in the nation.

The Ministers also felicitated the family members of organ donors and transplant experts at the institute and hospital.