A brand-new LCH

Two modern operating rooms, a full emergency room with attached surgical suite, and a modern laboratory-these are just some of the dramatic changes nearing completion at Landour Community Hospital (LCH), Woodstock's primary health care facility. Generations of former students and staff will find the hospital almost unrecognizable when the Rs. 3 crore ($700,000) rebuilding effort is completed in mid-May 2007.

Funded by Woodstock Class of 1981 alumnus, Sanjay Narang, the dramatic upgrading of facilities will be matched by a new level of professional staffing and services, according to Dr. Matthew Samuel, LCH's medical supervisor and senior administrative officer. New staff will include a pediatrician, an internal medicine specialist, a general surgeon, and an anesthesiologist. Dr. Samuel says the hospital is also hoping to add a full-time gynecologist and to schedule regular visits from an ophthalmologist.

Patients will all be housed in modern wards with private bathrooms. All told, LCH will have 45 to 50 patient beds, including an intensive care ward with an attending doctor and an isolation ward. The new patient accommodation will include large wards, semi-private wards, and some private rooms.

LCH is maintaining its focus on serving the poor of the Mussoorie area, but it will use revenues from some private patient facilities to earn revenues to support its core charitable mission. The hospital will have the facilities and staff of a modern hospital yet will remain true to its goal of "reaching the unreached," Dr. Samuel pledges.

Even as the hospital is being reconstructed, the facility continues to provide emergency and outpatient care. This has meant some improvising; the x-ray suite has been pressed into service as a temporary operating room.

Among the features that will make hospital visits more pleasant will be a new waiting room and a canteen that will serve patients, hospital visitors, and staff. Patients and visitors will be transported between floors by a modern elevator, another first for the hospital. Two backup electrical generators will keep the lights and power running if the City power fails.

To add room for patient services, a new administrative office block has also been constructed. A facility-wide computer network will make patient information available throughout the hospital.

The interior of the hospital will amaze generations who remember the dingy cream walls, the gloomy low-level lighting, and forbidding stone floors. White-tiled walls, marble flooring, and bright fluorescent lighting are the new norm.

The three-storey building has been reconfigured to separate different functions. The ground floor will house the patients' and visitors' lounge, outpatient treatment rooms, the dental treatment suite, the canteen, and, via a separate entrance, the emergency room.

The second floor (UK first floor) is largely devoted to patient rooms and wards, along with a small staff conference room. The third floor houses the operating theatres and supporting facilities.

Dr. Samuel confesses that he's impatient to see the end of construction and full use of the new facilities. "It's something we never even dreamed of," he adds.

Woodstock School's project manager, Nigel Cooper, has assisted throughout the project, and the school has provided other support for LCH, both during the reconstruction and before. "We're thankful to Woodstock for their partnership," says a smiling Dr. Samuel.