Amrita Hospital Faridabad to introduce a comprehensive Liver Clinic

The Indian healthcare sector is witnessing rapid expansion, in terms of scale, revenue as well as employment generation. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, access to timely and quality healthcare is of paramount importance to every citizen in the country and healthcare has become a major area of focus for the government as well.

A right step in this direction is the recently-opened Amrita Hospital in Faridabad, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi last month. The 2600-bed hospital boasts of being one of India’s largest super speciality private hospitals built over 130 acres of land in Sector 88, Faridabad. It has been designed to offer 81 specialties for patients, including oncology, cardiac sciences, neuro sciences, gastro sciences, renal sciences, bone diseases and trauma, transplants, and maternity and will treat people from all over the country and across the world.

The facility
The sprawling facility has a built-up area of one crore square feet, including a modern 14-storey-high building, which will house all the state-of-the-art medical facilities and patient areas. When fully operational, the hospital will have 534 critical care beds, which will be the highest in India. It also has the cutting-edge healthcare technologies including 64 modular operation theatres, most advanced imaging services, fully automated robotic laboratory, high-precision radiation oncology, most updated nuclear medicine, and state-of-the-art 9 cardiac and interventional cath lab for clinical services.

It offers world-class medical facilities all under one roof, including one of India’s largest pediatric super specialty centres, several state-of-the-art fully automated smart laboratories, one of the country’s largest high precision radiation oncology, one of the largest, latest, and most advanced Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation centres in India, one of the largest centres for robotics, haptic, cadaveric, high fidelity, surgical and medical simulation, large facilities to handle infectious diseases, and one of the country’s largest Centre of Excellence for nuclear medicine in Diagnostic and Therapeutics.

Liver Clinic
Dr Bhaskar Nandi, Head of Department (HOD), Hepatology, Amrita Hospital, Faridabad.

The latest addition to this super specialty facility will be a fully-equipped Liver clinic, which will be functioning once a week at the hospital. The clinic aims to provide, comprehensive and high-quality care to patients with liver disease.

“The burden of liver disease in India has increased largely due to rise in the prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), alcoholic liver disease (ALD), and liver cancer,” said Dr Bhaskar Nandi, Head of Department (HOD), Hepatology, Amrita Hospital, Faridabad.

The prevalence of NAFLD among the general population of India ranges from 9-53%. This high prevalence has made NAFLD a public health problem. This disease is the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver transplantation in India. The rising incidence is associated with increasing prevalence of obesity and diabetes in the community. The government of India has taken note of this high prevalence and included NAFLD in the flagship program for non-communicable diseases (NPCDCS). In addition to NAFLD and ALD, the country already has a sizeable population suffering from chronic liver disease due to hepatitis B and hepatitis C.

“The Liver Clinic at Amrita will be a benchmark in healthcare excellence, which will be patient centric, affordable and accessible to all segments of the population,” said Dr Bhaskar Nandi.

The clinic aims to bring in a multidisciplinary approach to treatment of liver disease with expertise of hepatologist, hepatobiliary surgeon, intervention radiologist, dietician, counsellor, and physiotherapist. Patients with acute and chronic hepatitis, cirrhosis, portal hypertension, and liver cancer will be offered optimal treatment, follow-up, and long-term advice to prevent further progression of disease. Patients with liver failure and end-stage liver disease will be offered liver transplantation. The department of Hepatology has collaboration with premier national and international institutes, and the advice of experts from these premier institutes will be incorporated in patient care. The clinic will be one among the few centers in the country to provide the services of pediatric hepatologist for liver diseases specific to neonates and children. It is proposed to open a registry for children with Wilson’s disease.

The vision
Amrita Hospital has been founded by humanitarian Mata Amritanandamayi Devi, fondly known as Amma, to further her vision of making high-quality healthcare accessible to everyone in the country.

Amrita hospital in Faridabad shares the same vision as that of Amrita Institute of Medical Sciences (Amrita Hospital) in Kochi, one of the premier hospitals in South Asia since the past 25 years. In the years to come, the new hospital in Faridabad is being envisaged to be a centre for learning and research. It also has a medical college with a built-up area of 5.2 lakh square feet that forms part of the health city campus, which is Amrita University’s 8th campus.

The aim is to add value to the nation’s overburdened healthcare landscape and bring in innovative healthcare solutions and better treatment methods within reach for everyone. In the years to come, the multi-campus, multidisciplinary institution will impart knowledge to a vibrant community of more than 20,000 students with over 800 Ph D faculty and over 250 programs. Hindustan Times