Karamsad Cardiac Centre launches programme to treat congenital diseases in children

By ENN,
Anand,
Bhanubhai & Madhuben Patel Cardiac Centre, a unit of Shree Krishna Hospital, located at Karamsad, which completed its first year of operations yesterday, launched an innovative programme to treat children suffering from congenital heart diseases to mark the occasion. The programme, which encourages donors to contribute for surgeries that save lives of such children, called Nurturing Life, was unveiled at a function organized to commemorate the event. The event was attended by Dr. KM Cherian, the world - renowned cardiac surgeon, who pioneered paediatric cardiac surgeries in India and Dr. Amrita Patel, Who is the Chairman of National Dairy Development Board and also of Charutar Arogya Mandal, the trust which has setup the Cardiac Centre.

Bhanubhai & Madhuben Patel Cardiac Centre is the latest addition to Shree Krishna Hospital's ever-growing range of facilities aimed at fulfilling its mission to provide the most comprehensive health care services at affordable rates to the community, especially the rural community. Created with a contribution of over Rs. 15 cores made by the Elecon Group of Companies, the Centre, through its collaboration with Dr.Cherian and his Frontier Lifeline Hospital at Chennai, brings not just the best of facilities for heart care, but also the best practices.

Speaking at the function, Dr. Patel mentioned that Nurturing Life has been launched keeping in mind the fact that most children with congenital heart defects are born in lower - income families and these children do not receive treatment due to lack of financial resources. Most commercial cardiac centres do not encourage these surgeries as not only the risks are high and skills required for them far greater, but also because most patients would not be ina position to pay for the procedure. The Government of Gujarat does ran a programme for school children suffering from these diseases, but the number of such patients is high enough to warrant participation by non-government facilities as well. Already, in the first year of its operation, the Cardiac Centre has operated on around 60 such cases and 50% of these cases required full or partial concessions in treatment. Dr. Patel mentioned that it is this experience and the generous support it received from donors that encouraged the Centre to launch the programme.

Dr. Cherian, whose hospital at Chennai also specializes in paediatric cardiac surgeries, lauded the novel initiatives and pledged his full support to the programme. He noted that the Karamsad Cardiac Centre now performs surgeries that are preformed at very few other centres in the country and that the Centre has made arrangements to transport patients from their home towns to Karamsad. He mentioned that his hospital receives a number of cases from Gujarat and with the new programme; it should be possible for these cases to be treated at karamsad, saving the patients and their many difficulties. He also urged the State Government to recognize the Centre for treatment of school children, which would enable more such children being treated in Gujarat itself. He also appreciated the efforts of the cardiac team and noted that the Cardiac Centre is receiving references from remote places not only form Gujarat but also form Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.