amaravati notwithstanding the governments plans to construct three superspecialty paedriatic hospitals in the state the fate of mother child care unit mccu at the guntur government general hospital continues to hang in the balance the mccu has not been included in the governments priority projects list while the three paediatric superspecialty hospitals will come up at a cost of rs 180 crore each the upgrade of mccu which was designed to be developed as a onestop solution for all healthcare needs of new mothers and infants requires around rs 15 crore once functional it was supposed to be the biggest dedicated institution for mother and childcare with 600 bedswhile it took nearly 50 years to develop gghguntur as the biggest public healthcare facility with a capacity of 1160 beds mccu was expected to add over 50 per cent bed capacity in one go it was the union health ministry which took the initiative in 2017 and proposed to sanction rs 20 crore to develop an exclusive block for mccu within the existing ggh under the national health mission programmethe centre asked the state government to allot rs 20 crore as matching grant to develop the block after the initial estimations it was felt the amount would not be sufficient to develop a superspecialty hospital for mother and child care members of government medical college alumni of north america gmcana were then roped in to contribute to the project the entire project cost was estimated at rs 65 crore when the state government signed an mou with gmcana in 2018 old students of gmcguntur came forward to contribute rs 30 crore with district collector kona sasidhar playing a key role in the negotiationshowever mccu works came to a grinding halt almost a year ago when the project contractor left the scene after laying of the foundation works were stalled due to delay in clearance of bills to the contractor we have taken up the issue with director of medical education dr m raghavendra rao during his recent visit and urged him to identify a site for construction of the superspecialty pediatric hospital said ggh superintendent dr n prabhavati