NRI Aid for City Hospital

The health department is set to change the face of Guru Gobind Singh Hospital in Patna City as help has started to pour in from NRI doctors and international non-government organizations for the cause. Narendra Yadav, chairman of Braunwald Hospitals Group and senior interventional cardiologist from Germany, has asked the health department to provide space at Guru Gobind Singh Hospital for developing a small cardiovascular modern hospital there. Yadav, a cardiologist of international repute, has over 10,000 cardiovascular interventions to his credit. After working with Klinikum Nuernberg Hospital in Germany for over five years, he has returned to India and is now working as chairman of the Braunwald Hospitals Group, which plans to set up a chain of cardiovascular centers across India.

“Dr Yadav has evinced interest in setting up a modern cardiovascular center at Guru Gobind Singh Hospital to provide services like open-heart surgery, bypass and angioplasty among others,” principal secretary, health, Sanjay Kumar told The Telegraph. “Yadav plans to set up a cardiac catheterization laboratory to provide all kinds of specialized heart treatments. We have identified space at the hospital for this project and what we need to work out now is the kind of deal we are going to ink with the group. If we are going to provide them space in a government hospital, then they should subsidize the kind of services they are providing. That means poor people should get treatment at subsidized rates there. That would be part of the agreement we sign with them,” Yadav said.

The upcoming cardiovascular center would not be part of the Guru Gobind Singh Hospital. “We are just going to provide space to the group. The management of the upcoming cardiovascular center would be altogether different from that of Guru Gobind Singh Hospital,” Sanjay said. Spanish non-government organization Médecins Sans Frontières has also asked for a 50-bed hospital space at Guru Gobind Singh Hospital, Sanjay said. “They will be setting up a hospital for treatment of patients suffering from multiple diseases, such as HIV, tuberculosis and kala azar. We often see people with HIV developing TB. The department has in principle approved both these proposals,” Sanjay said.

He said work on both proposals could be visible by December-end. Guru Gobind Singh Hospital was recently declared a district hospital. “As the hospital has now been given the tag of district hospital, we are going to develop facilities like Sick Newborn Care Unit, intensive care unit and modernized operation theatre among others. The hospital has now come under National Health Mission (NHM). So funds received under NHM program can now be spent on this hospital,” said the principal secretary, health. Guru Gobind Singh Hospital does not have a fulltime superintendent and district civil surgeon Pramod Jha, has been made in-charge superintendent of the hospital. Sanjay, however, assured that a full-time superintendent would be appointed by month-end. – Telegraph India