Addressing serious issues like obesity and mother-child care,Poona Hospital plans a 'serviceful' silver jubilee celebration As a part of the silver jubilee celebrations,city-based Poona Hospital and Research Center has a slew of plans,which apart from including awareness programmes about obesity,will also have a minimal budget mother-child care programme in store. The programme will cost as low as Rs 10 per day. Dr J Ravindranath,director,Poona Hospital and Research Center says that the hospital had decided to take up the issue of obesity looking at the alarming rise in cases of obesity due to lifestyle changes. Obesity expert Dr Shashank Shah and Rajkumar Chordia,joint managing trustee of Poona Hospital says,"An international surgical team,international standard safety measures,advanced technology and the support of the only multi-disciplinary team in India will be made available at Poona Hospital during the surgeries." As a part of the Obesity Awareness Programme,lectures and free consultation by doctors will be organised till July 31. "While a Surgery Week with respect to obesity will be organised between July 27 and August 2. Apart from the programmes,free seminars and consultation on regular basis will also be offered by Poona Hospital on every third Thursday of the month," Chordia adds. According to Shah obesity is curable and the awareness programme would help the common man to understand the problems and internationally approved and available treatments for the disease. Chordia further points out that as part of the silver jubilee celebrations of the institution; those undergoing bariatric surgeries during the obesity surgery week will be offered a special package. The first camp was organised at Ulhasnagar on June 14,and others will be held at Kolhapur on June 19,Sangli on June 20 and Nashik on June 21. According to Rupa Sengupta,medical administrator at the hospital,another scheme called the mother-child care programme will also be launched. "Here a pregnant woman can register herself at the hospital for just Rs 6500 that would take care of her medical needs and also look after the childs entire immunisation till the child is one-year-old," Sengupta says.
