New emergency wing opens at City Hospital No. 1

TALAS — The rebuilt emergency department of Talas Municipal Hospital No. 1 opened to patients yesterday, with new operating theaters, a resuscitation room and a covered ambulance entrance, ending two years in which the city's main emergency hospital treated its casualties in temporary wards.

The work was paid for by a grant from the territorial administration and by US aid funds. Governor Nurgul Abdrakhmanova attended the opening. Neither the Governor's office nor the hospital gave a total cost.

The hospital, opened in 1964, has about 480 beds and takes most of the city's ambulance admissions, as well as trauma cases and general surgery. The Talas Regional Hospital, which was rebuilt between 1995 and 2002 and opened its own trauma center two years ago, takes the more complex cases from across the territory.

"For forty years we have been operating in rooms built for the standards of 1964," the hospital's head surgeon told guests at the opening. Staff said the new department would cut the time ambulance patients wait to be seen, but warned that the hospital still lacked nurses, many of whom have left for the United States.