Fever Hospital expansion in Hyderabad faces inordinate delay Since 2022

Hyderabad’s historic Fever Hospital expansion remains stalled nearly four-and-a-half years after its foundation. The delayed project includes a new outpatient block, dialysis unit and mortuary. Officials cite funding issues and local opposition, while doctors stress the need for modern infrastructure.

Hyderabad: Nearly four-and-a-half years after the foundation ceremony that promised a major upgrade to Hyderabad’s historic ‘Koranti Dawakhana’, officially named as Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases in Nallakunta, the expansion project remains frozen in administrative limbo.

The foundation stone for the expansion of the Fever Hospital in Nallakunta was laid way back in February 2022, and since then, the project has been hit by slow progress and inordinate delays.

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The initiative aimed to upgrade Fever Hospital by developing a state-of-the-art outpatient (OP) block designed to handle a heavy daily influx that regularly reaches between 800 and 1,000 patients during seasonal surges, alongside a dedicated dialysis unit and a high-end mortuary facility.

At present, the half-completed structure has become an eyesore with construction debris and exposed scaffolding. The outpatient facilities continue to remain inadequate for patients, especially during the surge of seasonal ailments in Hyderabad and surrounding regions.

Initially (in 2022), about Rs 10.91 crore was set aside for the infrastructure package that included an OP block, a dialysis facility worth Rs 50 lakh, and a high-end mortuary facility, to be developed with a cost of nearly Rs 60 crore.

“The Fever Hospital is now surrounded by a dense neighbourhood. The families here are opposing the expansion of the hospital, including the proposal to establish a high-end mortuary. Then, there is the issue of sluggish funding, which has delayed the prestigious project inordinately,” health officials familiar with the issue said.

The upgradation of the infrastructure of Fever Hospital is much-needed, as it has the potential to become a premier research centre in tropical medicine. “There is only one more dedicated tropical medicine research facility in India in Kolkata. The Fever Hospital is a unique health care facility dedicated only to seasonal diseases. The infrastructure upgrade will also mean more PG seats, which will foster growth in research and academics,” senior doctors said.

Historical perspective

Sir Ronald Ross Institute of Tropical and Communicable Diseases, universally known as the Fever Hospital, is linked to the earliest public health initiatives in Hyderabad. The hospital was established in 1915 by the seventh Nizam of Hyderabad, Mir Osman Ali Khan.

The facility originally began as a quarantine facility located on a small hillock outside the main city limits at Errannagutta. Founded to manage devastating cholera epidemics and isolate infectious patients away from densely populated residential neighborhoods, generations of local Hyderabadis colloquially dubbed it the ‘Koranti Dawakhana’.

In August 1997, the institution was officially renamed to honour British physician Sir Ronald Ross, who was awarded the 1902 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for discovering the malaria transmission cycle, a pioneering research he famously conducted while stationed and working in Hyderabad.