ANIMAL FACILITY ACCESS FORM

PSG Animal facility is an ISO 9001:2008 certified facility since 2009 and is renewed every year. It is registered with the CPCSEA for small animals and the Registration Number is 158/PO/bc/99/CPCSEA (validity from 25.11.2011 to 24.11.2014). Registration is renewed once in every three years. Institutional animal ethics committee (IAEC) was formed in 1998 and is functional from then on with changes being made as per the instructions of the CPCSEA.

Animals are housed in a three storied building with mostly epoxy flooring, walls titled with granite and air conditioning facility. It has a basement, ground and first floor and at each level the area is 4273Sq.ft. On either side of the building a path of seven feet width and a space of 15 feet in front and behind leading to the door is available to take the trollies all around. Washing and dress change facility is provided for all the staff in ground and first floor. The dirty and clean corridors system is maintained and windows and the path to carry the waste out to the collection area are present on both sides. There is a room for ethical committee, a sick animal’s room, quarantine, sterilization room and a laboratory in the ground floor with five rooms to house experimental animals in the ground floor.

In the first floor there are five rooms to house breeding stock of animals, a washing room, a procedure room and an autopsy room. There is a room for technicians in the first floor. The facility has clean lift to carry people and materials to all the three floors. A sterile lift is provided to deliver the sterilized material to the first floor and basement from the sterile room. Fire safety training is provided and a fire extinguisher is placed in each floor. One unit of locker with 12 lockers is available for the staff.

We have obtained permission for experimenting with large animals to train surgeons to practice laparoscopy on pigs. A class room is available in the basement with facilities like an exclusive personal computer set and roof mounted overhead projector. This has provision for projection of power points. Four units with 96 lockers are available for use to surgeons. A doctor’s lounge for the surgeons to relax between surgeries is available.

Two rooms are available for dress change, a store room, a dry lab equipped with five sets of endotrainers, scrub room, a well equipped operation theatre with five operation tables and all the instruments necessary for laparoscopy. The postoperative room is provided to house the five the operated animal are available.

Behind the facility there are two sheds for housing of pigs and sheep for which we obtained the approval on 25.07.2013. Two more rooms are built for rehabilitation and for retired sheep. Rodents like mice and rat are caged in polypropylene cages, guinea pigs and rabbits in stainless steel cages held in appropriate trollies. Trollies (7nos) are available to hold instruments in the operation theatre, (25nos) to hold animal cages and (5nos) for shifting the animals, etc.