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Journalism of Courage
On a cold November day, Aasa Singh was sitting up in a sunwashed ward of Escorts Hospital, recuperating from the heart operation that had cost him Rs 2 lakh. Singh has been to London twice to visit relatives, but the thought of travelling to the United Kingdom for the surgery never crossed his mind. 8216;8216;I chose this place as this is my home,8217;8217; says a visibly tired Singh.
As the name implies, these hospitals offer patients an array of hotel-like facilities and services: swank interiors, luxury suites, room service, multi gyms, 24-hour cafes, ATM machines, recreation rooms, air-conditioned prayer rooms, et al. The era of five-star medicare is well and truly here.
8216;8216;Our aim has been to create a world-class integrated health care delivery system in India,8217;8217; says Amardeep Singh, senior manager of Fortis Hospital, which triggered off the 8216;hospotel8217; trend when it arrived in Mohali three years ago.
But why Punjab? 8216;8216;People of this region, including Jammu and Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh, had to travel to Delhi for super-speciality care as no facilities were available. We have filled that vacuum,8217;8217; explains Dr H P Singh, medical superintendent of the Rs 40-crore Escorts Heart and Superspeciality Institute, Amritsar.
But he candidly confesses market factors are also at work. 8216;8216;The NRIs form the major bulk of our in-patients. Two factors bring them here. First, the feeling of being at home among loved ones, and second, the cost factor. We offer premier tertiary care facilities to people at one-tenth of the cost overseas,8217;8217; H P Singh says.
Buoyed by the success of its Rs 155-crore Mohali hospital and Rs 14-crore multispeciality hospital in Amritsar, the Ranbaxy group8217;s Fortis Healthcare plans to open facilities in Jalandhar and Ludhiana, as well as south Delhi and Gurgaon. P C Reddy8217;s Apollo, too, is expected to start operations in Ludhiana in the next couple of months.
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Punjab offers two advantages: plenty of NRIs and plenty of money. It helps that costs are a tenth of charges overseas
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The advent of corporate bigwigs like Fortis, Apollo and Escorts in Punjab has had a ripple effect in healthcare across the region. Many of the smaller hospitals in the NRI-rich Doaba belt of Punjab, too, have woken up to the business of care with the human touch.
Like the big daddies of healthcare, smaller hospitals8212;such as the BBC Heart Care in Jalandhar8212;have prayer rooms for attendants, and have started beaming Gurbani into waiting rooms to soothe frayed nerves.
They have also started soliciting patients from abroad through their web sites and e-mail, fax and telecon. And to make patients feel at home, they have introduced 8216;Home OPDs8217;.
8216;8216;To ease the difficulties of those who cannot come to the hospital for follow-ups, we personally visit them at their homes,8217;8217; explains Dr C S Pruthi of Pruthi Hospital, Jalandhar.
Fortis goes a step further. Not only are doctors available on call, they collect samples for testing from the homes of patients slated to undergo surgery. And for those who are unable to return for physiotherapy sessions, the hospital sends a physiotherapist to the patient8217;s residence for hourly sessions.
To woo farmers, hospitals have floated special 8216;Kisan Schemes8217;, which enable farmers to undergo treatment at concessional rates.
PATIENTS 8212; especially NRIs based in the UK, where the National Health Scheme is hopelessly clogged 8212; return the favour by preferring to undergo all surgical procedures in Punjab.
8216;8216;Waiting lists abroad are unending,8217;8217; points out Dr S P S Virk of Virk Hospital, Jalandhar. NRIs, he says, flock to him for infertility treatment during their annual trips home, so much so all slots are booked at his hospital till May 2005.
8216;8216;We coordinate with the NRIs through e-mail and they plan their visits according to the dates available here,8217;8217; he says.
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8216;We coordinate with the NRIs through e-mail and they plan their visits according to the dates we are free,8217; says a doctor
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Close proximity to Pakistan Lahore is about 50 km from Amritsar gives a further boost to the great hospital industry in Punjab. Doctors and patients have started trickling in from across the Wagah border.
Some Pakistani medical experts are, in fact, keen on entering into an arrangement with Escorts that allows doctors from here to visit Pakistan to examine their patients, and allows them to send their patients to India for surgery at subsidised rates.
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The 8216;hospotels8217; have a ripple effect. Small places, too, offer home OPDs, prayer rooms
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Because, though less expensive than similar services in the US or UK, the cost of treatment at the 8216;hospotels8217; are steep by most standards. An open heart surgery costs anything between Rs 1.5 lakh and Rs 2.2 lakh. Plus, hospitalisation charges are approximately Rs 3,500 per day for ICU and CCU, and around Rs 1,500 for the wards.
Many patients don8217;t mind. 8216;8216;We made the right decision in coming here,8217;8217; says Usha Rani, 67, who was treated at Escorts Amritsar for three blockages in the heart. 8216;8216;It was a matter of life and death.8217;8217;And money figures nowhere in that equation.
