Chennai Health Infrastructure/ Hospitals/ Medical tourism/ Health Research - Discussions & Updates

[goodman]

[QUOTE=tn2usa;77030005]Sir,

I would like to humbly differ with you here .Before 100 Years electricity was invented , 200 Years back Oxygen was invented , 70 Years back Television was invented ,I can show hundreds of such inventions , discoveries happened in simple Labs . I could be wrong with the numbers but the point i am trying to make is in those Old days those scientists achieved some thing great with very basic lab facilities compared to what now exists in India. It is the will power and dedication that was backing them rather than infrastructure.

I could be wrong , but to what i have seen here people doing Phds particularly Indian Origin do so to just get Green Card through E1 category and join some multinational to earn quick bucks. But i dont blame them , if i do so i myself should be blamed first , because i am one of them not in Scientist Category but in a different category.


In the process of comparing the facilties you forgot one thing, which is, the timeline. At that time when those inventions were made, they were the best equipped labs and you cannot compare the facilities at that time with the facilities now. Can you? It wouldn't make any sense. The bottom line is lack of infrastructure is putting India behind. You may have dedication and will, but if there is no water, electricity and chemicals- no research, no patents, no publications.

Another problem is you are taking everything as a case to case basis. One success doesn't mean anything. Its like saying that india has come out of poverty because there are some millionaires. Can you say that? No. You have to take the picture as a whole. That is what I am trying to say. This may not be the case in an engineering or Software field, which are way more developed infrastructurally than biosciences.
Pay is less in India. I second that. The pay is not enough and when compared to Software, biotechnology/Pharma companies pay very less. I am not saying this by guessing. I am saying this by experience.

Moreover, doing clinical trials or administering vaccines and collecting data is not research. I am talking about bench work, real lab research that involves serious science and publishing in high impact journals.

About doing PhDs for green card.. I think you are opinionated. Doing PhD for 5-6 years just to get green card is not easy. Furthermore, do you know that it is more difficult to get green card in EB1 category than any other category. You have to have very good publications with citations and really strong recommendation letters from eminent people from your field and then a strong petition from your employer. Please, don't even say that people do PhD for green card and join MNC's.

[wlbkng]

Following recognition by the National Academy of Burns-India (NABI) as a centre for training doctors in treating burn injuries, more patients are seeking the services of the Plastic Surgery Department of the Government Kilpauk Medical Hospital in the city.

At least eight to nine patients are admitted every day to KMC's Burns ward, which has only 50 beds. Its intensive care unit is always full. According to V. Jayaraman, head of the department, over 90 per cent of the patients come with more than 50 per cent burns and their survival rate is lower. The wards are also full as most patients have to stay at least three weeks in the hospital.

“Patients must stay until the wounds heal. While skin grafting takes 10 days to settle, it takes a week to 10 days to prepare a patient for surgery,” he said. Every year, at least 12 patients require hospitalisation for more than a month.

The Government Vellore Medical College Hospital recently set up a 10-bed burns ward and patients with burn injuries who are brought to the hospital are treated to a certain extent. But, as it does not have trained specialists, seriously injured patients are referred to the KMC after stabilising them for three days.

Often victims die despite reaching the tertiary care centre for want of immediate treatment.

“We have proposed a training schedule for doctors and nurses from other hospitals on the lines of that organised by the Plastic Surgery department of Stanley Hospital to treat hand injury patients,” Dr. Jayaraman said. But merely training doctors will not help as the wards must also be equipped with materials needed for treating patients.

“It is necessary to allocate funds to district headquarters hospitals to equip them with the necessary facilities, including drugs, dressing materials and trained personnel,” he added.

The department has also sought a building, the plan for which will be prepared with inputs from the Public Works Department.

During the conference organised by the NABI in January, Principal Health Secretary V.K. Subburaj said that the government proposed to set up a skin and tissue bank at the King Institute in Guindy at a cost of Rs.6 crore. It was also proposed to collect the amniotic waste from maternity hospitals and use them for treatment instead of the expensive collagen.

A Health Department official said that the proposed projects would take off after the results of the Assembly elections are declared.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/...cle1983897.ece

[Seyoan]

In the process of comparing the facilties you forgot one thing, which is, the timeline. At that time when those inventions were made, they were the best equipped labs and you cannot compare the facilities at that time with the facilities now. Can you? It wouldn't make any sense. The bottom line is lack of infrastructure is putting India behind. You may have dedication and will, but if there is no water, electricity and chemicals- no research, no patents, no publications.

It was under the same conditions that JC Bose and Sir CV Raman and Ramanujam flourished. I understand that infrastructure compenstates for lacuanes in intelligence, but that cannot be used as an excuse for accomplishment. The real scientist has to step up, did not kary Mullis get a Nobel prize in 90s with apparutus that is available in TN govt schools?

That is what I am trying to say. This may not be the case in an engineering or Software field, which are way more developed infrastructurally than biosciences.
Pay is less in India. I second that. The pay is not enough and when compared to Software, biotechnology/Pharma companies pay very less. I am not saying this by guessing. I am saying this by experience.

That is the case in USA also how much a Post doc gets paid compared to his not so intelligent BTech buddy who entered IT industry? one fifth?

[kongutamizhan]

Originally Posted by Seyoan

It was under the same conditions that JC Bose and Sir CV Raman and Ramanujam flourished.

Except for the similarity in poverty between then and now, it's a different era and different government policies which atleast helped the research to some extent.

Originally Posted by Seyoan

The real scientist has to step up, did not kary Mullis get a Nobel prize in 90s with apparutus that is available in TN govt schools?

Exceptional inspiring story. But you can't always expect person dependent on wheel chair to qualify for a olympic 100m

[goodman]

Again, I don't know why people are comparing scenarios that are separated by atleast 80 years.
Nobody is giving lack of infrastructure as an excuse. It is a deterrent to both keeping best minds inside the country and bringing them back in. That's my argument. There are mere exceptions and one cannot bring a country up with just exceptions.
Once you let people out, there is no way you can bring them in, unless you show them that they can do uninterrupted research. Don't say that you will give them a beaker full of water, a heater and a thermometer and expect them to invent like Kary mullis. By the way Karry mullis was working in a big company at that time. He had the best infrastructure.

Moreover, Seyoan, Your comparisons are too way skewed. Can you compare a postdoc's salary who is undergoing an academic training on a federal grant to a Btech guy who is working in a company which makes profit. Can you? Think.
FYI, Postdoc's are paid based on their experience. The average is 38K and the highest can go upto 70K depending on experience.
Compare how much a Btech guy and BSc guy would get in a company setting. That would be appropriate.
When CV raman, JC bose did research they did not have competition right in the exact experiment they were doing.
But now, let me tell you that the experiment that we do in our lab, are being done in at least 10 labs with same ideas and identical experimental setup around USA. If I slack a little bit, I will lose my publication. That's when infrastructure plays a very important role. Ideas are the same, the difference comes when you have the right equipments, best chemicals etc.
When I was in Anna university, so many days were wasted because we never had any power due to transformer bursting off due to overload. We never had any water supply for some days. These days we just went home. Nothing was done. The scenario is the same in many universities throughout India.
There are only very handful of labs that have good infrastructure.

Another thing I would like to put forth is that there are only thousands of scientists who left India and went to better places to do research. What about other millions of so called Best Indian minds who are in India? What are they doing? If motivation is the only key to good result then they should be inventing now right.
How many breakthroughs have come from India? But those who went to better places like USA, gave break through results. I am seeing with my own eyes here. Why the same brain that cannot invent or discover in India, can do magic in USA or Europe. Did anybody think about that?
Infrastructure can never compensate lacunae's in intelligence. Seoyan, Wrong statement. Do you mean that an uneducated person can do research if you give him the best infrastructure?
Good infrastructure motivates people to do more because, it makes life easy. It gives you more time to think about your work and not about some petty things.


I rest my arguments here.

[goodman]

deleted

[Raji7373]

MMC gets first of its kind ortho lab in country

http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chenna...ry/270948.html

CHENNAI: Indian orthopaedic surgeons, who flock largely to Thailand to get their share of training in cadaveric dissection, can now do it within the country.

Madras Medical College on Monday opened the first of its kind Orthopaedic Cadaveric Skills Lab in any government college in the country to train post graduate students in cadaveric dissection. The lab is expected to benefit not just Indian surgeons, but also their counterparts from neighboring countries without such facilities.

The cadaveric lab, situated in the Institute of Anatomy, was constructed in association with DePuy Johnson & Johnson under Public Private Partnership at a cost of `34 lakh borne entirely by the private agency. Earlier, an Orthopadeic Bioskills Lab was also instituted in the campus with the help DePuy Johnson & Johnson through its professional education grant.

“The lab will consist of four divisons,” said RH Govardhan, Director, Institute of Orthopaedics and Traumatology.“One, a room to preserve the body at a temperature of minus 18 degrees to minus 20 degrees.

Two, a freezer room maintained at a temperature of minus 6 degrees. Three, a room with six surgery tables where the experiments can be performed and four, a hall with viewing and conferencing facilities to see the experiments being performed,” he said.

However, experts are concerned about the availability of cadavers to perform experiments and studies on a sustained basis.“We have appealed to NGOs and other agencies to motivate patient attenders to make a cadaver donation,” says Govardhan. The State government’s initiatives to simplify the procedures involved in cadaver donation has increased the number of voulnteers, according to hospital authorities. “At present we have 600 people who are registered with MMC for cadaver donation, 700 people registered with the Salem government hospital and 300 in Dharmapuri,” said V Kanagasabai, Dean, MMC.

“While we have surpassed the international figures in organ donation with 70 out of 100 people willing to donate, we are yet to achieve such results in cadaver donation,” said VK Subburaj, health secretary.

“Our mortuaries are overflowing with dead bodies.Embalmed dead bodies can be used as cadavers for academic purposes. But we do not embalm our dead bodies and preserve them just to save some money. Now its time to start thinking of how to utilise these dead bodies,” said Subburaj. “The unclaimed bodies which were in large number with the Government hospitals have also come down tremendously with better communication facilities,” added V Kanagasabai.

PPP touted as solution to delays in government healthcare delivery

The easiest and the most effective way to cut delays in the government health delivery system is to implement projects under public-private partnerships, according to the state health secretary, VK Subburaj.

Recalling the delivery of amenities at the Institute of Mental Health, the largest-of-its-kind hospital in Asia, Subburaj said, “About 1,500 patients are treated at the IMH on an average.

After the Human Rights Commission and High Court noted that the patients at IMH lived like inmates in jail, we immediately sanctioned money to improve the conditions. But it took two years to deliver basic amenities like bedsheets and pillows because of the tedious procedures in the system.” In the same way, the Oncology department in the Government General Hospital is not equipped with high end infrastructure. For instance there is no PET scan centre in the hospital. “Setting up a PET centre will cost about `12 crore and will take another 12 years to establish. Meanwhile, private hospitals have come forward to allow patients from government hospitals to use them at half the cost. Such PPP initiatives can boost our healthcare system,” Subburaj said.

The fi rst PPP model was started in Thiruvallur in a programme to provide noon-meals for women coming for anti-natal care. “In six months, it was so successful that it was replicated in many government hospitals,” he added

[satishanu]

Straight from TIME 100

http://www.time.com/time/video/playe...066607,00.html

[Raji7373]

http://epaper.financialexpress.com/F...4.shtml?Mode=1

The founder chairman of Apollo Hospitals tells Sushila Ravindranath that India will definitely become the world's leading healthcare provider. But we have to decide whether this will happen in five or fifty years Why can't healthcare get infrastructure status? The more hospitals one builds, the more steel and cement are consumed. And the employment opportunity is big

[madrasi7777]

Health sector and hospital business have the advantage of not bowing down to the dictates of the stock exchanges as there are no season or time where one falls ill. We as Indians have a distinct advantage of being leaders in the health sectors as almost all the third world country citizens only have India to look forward to for reasonable cost for their treatment. India must leverage this advantage to leapfrog into the front league. Like the doctor says "it is up to us to be world leaders in 5 or 50 years".

[bonoslack7]

A screenshot of the Chennai Corporation website, which will host the Direct Health Reporting System.

http://www.thehindu.com/news/states/...cle2027220.ece

A Direct Health Reporting System under which all the hospitals in the city are required to provide details of the patients on a daily basis to the Chennai Corporation is all set to go online.

The civic body is making provisions on its website for hosting the system, which would help it track the public health on a daily basis and take quick remedial measures.

All the hospitals and health posts of the Corporation, private hospitals, clinics and laboratories will in the next few days be directed to register with the civic body's Health Department.

Each of the hospitals or laboratories registered with the civic body would be given a unique login that would be accessed daily by the reporting officer of the hospital concerned.

The reporting officer of the hospital would report online the total number of suspected cases in the prescribed format of Form S. After the results of medical tests are received by the hospital, the confirmed cases with address and other details including the name, age and sex of the patients would be reported in Form C.

The civic body would have the right to ask the reporting officer of any hospital or laboratory for detailed information on the daily report if necessary. The information would be used to take preventive measures in the zones where the diseases are reported.

Malaria, dengue, plague, cerebrospinal fever, cholera, tuberculosis, epidemic influenza, chikungunya, tetanus and rabies are among the 25 diseases or conditions on the list to be reported by the hospitals.

The Chennai Corporation has instructed its officials to keep the data strictly confidential.

The private laboratories will also provide the culture report of samples of micro organisms and details of drug sensitivity to the civic body. The Chennai Corporation will initiate action against hospitals or laboratories that fail to report in the required format.

[Raji7373]

http://www.businessworld.in/bw/2011_...offset=0&max=1

Resting in his twin-sharing room in Delhi’s Max Hospital, Gerald Nnaemeka Nagbo, 42, smiles and poses a counter question: “How much do you know about Nigeria?” I had asked him where exactly his place in Nigeria was. He hails from Abuloma, a small town in South Nigeria, he says. He works in an oil processing unit, and has travelled to India with his younger brother for treatment for spinal cancer, which had been detected early. “In Nigeria, there are no good equipment (in hospitals). We have come to India because we can never get this treatment back home.”


NOT SPECIFICALLY RELATED TO CHENNAI .....

[deepaksubramaniyan]

Nursing institute for HIV patients remains a non-starter

CHENNAI: More than two years after the foundation stone was laid, the city's first post-graduate nursing institute dedicated to treating HIV+ patients in Tambaram remains a non-starter due to shortage of funds.

On November 1, 2008, the then union minister for health and family welfare, Anbumani Ramdoss, laid the foundation stone for the Rs 28 crore-Indian Institute of Advanced Nursing at Tambaram Sanatorium. Little work has happened since then. "As many organisations, both public and private, are involved, mobilisation of funds and co-ordination between different organisations have been challenges in executing the project," sources in the state health department told The Times Of India.

The nursing institute a unique public-private partnership venture with state-of-the-art facilities was dedicated to train nurses providing healthcare to HIV+ve patients in the country. A joint venture of the Union ministry of health and family welfare, National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO), Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Society (TANSACS), Indian Nursing Council, William J Clinton Foundation and Yale University, the institute was slated to come up on a five-acre plot near the National Institute of Siddha at the Government Hospital of Thoracic Medicine (GHTM).

The idea to set up such an institute, according to sources, was that the GHTM is not only a centre of excellence for treating HIV+ve persons in the country but is also the largest hospital in giving treatment for these patients in the country. At present, the hospital gives treatment for around 4,000 HIV+ve persons. "The institute was also aimed to act as a national hub for nursing, research and training in HIV/AIDS-related cases," sources added.

As per plan, the union health ministry has given Rs 5 crore as seed money for the Rs 28-crore project. The Clinton Foundation is responsible for raising the rest of the funds, and Yale University will provide expertise in training. On its part, the state government through TANSACS has given the land for the institute. The feasibility study for the project was done in 2006 by the Union health ministry through NACO.

At present, the state has around 10% of the total HIV affected persons in the country and ranks fourth after Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka.

There is a shortage of 15 lakh nurses in the public health sector in India. During the 11th Plan, the Centre had allotted Rs. 3,900 crore to the nursing sector alone for building human resources, expanding infrastructure and creating four centres of excellence in Chennai, New Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkatta. In Tamil Nadu, the state government had granted permission to the private sector for starting 50 nursing schools and colleges.

[deepaksubramaniyan]

http://articles.timesofindia.indiati...e-train-nurses

[arun82]

There is huge Gap in the rural health care. Until that is addressed India will not lead in health care. More medical colleges should be available in Tier 2 cities where meritious can be doctors and serve these areas

[bonoslack7]

http://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/...cle2085601.ece

The new buildings at the Communicable Diseases Hospital in Tondiarpet will be ready by September, said Mayor M. Subramanian here on Tuesday.

Inspecting the construction of the modern facility at a cost of Rs.18 crore, he said the 360-bed hospital would be a boon to a large number of patients not only in Chennai, but from neighbouring districts too. Patients from as far as Andhra Pradesh are also making use of the hospital.

Coming up on around 14 acres, the new facilities with a built-up area of 1.1 lakh sq ft are being constructed at an estimated cost of Rs.18 crore. The construction work commenced in 2009. The buildings would house a block each for air-borne infectious diseases, diarrhoeal diseases and fevers. Separate buildings for the administrative block, laboratory, kitchen, outpatient block, mortuary and laundry are also coming up.

Additionally, a park would also be developed on the premises of the hospital, the Mayor told mediapersons, after reviewing the status of the work. The opposition leader of Corporation Council, Saidai P. Ravi, and civic body officials accompanied him during the visit to the construction site.

Explaining that the modernisation was necessitated as the hospital received hundreds of outpatients every day, Mr.Subramanian said the hospital admitted persons for various infectious diseases.

[Arul Murugan]

some one asked by u/c hospital building at old jail complex opp to central station...

here is the status from tamil murasu

[dineshderick]

Originally Posted by Arul Murugan

some one asked by u/c hospital building at old jail complex opp to central station...

here is the status from tamil murasu

Oh...
Thank u Arul Murugan.
I only asked about the status of this building in Chennai Descussion II Thread.
Thank u for remembering and posting it.

[Mklein]

Originally Posted by TShyam

Indian hospitals are better than most western ones when it comes to specialties particularly cardiology and CTVS. There are various measures (morbidity, mortality, 5 year survival rates, DALY's etc) to objectively measure these outcomes and Indian hospitals typically outperform their western peers. It is because of the sheer volume of patients our doctors see and the experience they gain while getting trained. Western doctors can only dream of those kind of numbers. Technology wise, whatever cutting edge tech available elsewhere is available in India too. Even in top notch government hospitals, there is no technology lag.

The problem with India is that this is not available to most of Indians while at the same time wealthy foreigners enjoy it at a fraction of the cost compared to their home.

I am seeking an alternative material to. Pericardium for valve leaflet repairs that won't calcify. I'm wondering what has been used in India?

Mike Klein

[Mklein]

I am seeking an alternative material to. Pericardium for valve leaflet repairs that won't calcify. I'm wondering what has been used in India?

Mike Klein