Mangalore: Infosys - Wenlock Pediatric Care Centre
Divvy Kant Upadhyay - Daijiworld.com Mangalore
Mangalore, Jul 2: A very significant example of a Public-Private Partnership, the new Pediatric wing of the Wenlock Hospital co-sponsored by the Infosys which is all ready to start functioning in few months is also a good model of medical and health care provision to the children of our nation.
'Prerna'-(the Infosys Employees Association) has long been associated with the Pediatric Professors of KMC(Kasturba Medical College) working at Wenlock hospital, helping them take care of sick children at Wenlock and Lady Goschen hospitals supported by the principles of the 37 year old Mangalore Medical Relief Society(MMRS).
Celebrating its decennial year, Narendran from the Infosys at Mangalore held discussions with ex-principal KMC, Mangalore and one of the founders of the MMRS, eminent doctor, Dr K R Shetty along with pediatrician Dr Shantaram Baliga and pediatric surgeon the late Dr Vivekanand Prabhu, both alumni of KMC and decided to invest in improving the facilities available for children suffering from various diseases.
The decision to set up a specialized pediatric care centre was taken keeping in mind studies done by, Dr Satish and Dr Sanjay, students of Dr Baliga at KMC, which revealed that in and around this district almost more than half of infant deaths were due to treatable reasons and this highlighted the need for a place to provide treatment and bring down the infant mortality rate (IMR) of this district. Today South Kanara District has one of the lowest IMR in the country at approx 10 infant deaths per 1000 live births.
A lot of hardwork and meticulous planning apart from other things has gone into this project, especially by Dr Baliga, who recalling his student days, points out that "it was appalling to see neonates and even mothers die at the District headquarters hospital due to ineffective infrastructural and referral facilities or due to lack of awareness among the masses"
What hurts most is to see rural people of our country become victims of the vicious circle of poverty and illness. "At first, the poverty and lack of hygiene result in disease and later to treat the disease, financial expenditure plunges those people into more poverty and thus they are never able to come out of it", explains Dr Baliga.
The Pediatric wing which will mainly serve as an Advanced Regional Referral Centre will have State of the art Intensive care units for Pediatric and Neonatal age groups along with fully equipped Casualty/Emergency room, Out-Patient Departments, Operation theatres and wards.
Patients from as far as Shimoga, Chitradurga and Kasargod are generally referred to the government hospital here, thus the new block will cater to almost 7-8 nearby districts and the referrals are expected to increase.
The project is an attempt to look beyond drug therapy to provide a Holistic approach for the entire family as a unit. Apart from medical facilities the social angle has also been taken care of with the provision of a library/play area for the patients and their siblings, separate dormitories for the parents with pantries. Coordination centres are to be set up in the new wing keeping in mind WHO guidelines and to encourage Govt. sponsored community programs like RCH and NRHM, parental awareness and alcohol de-addiction.
Shockingly recent statistics point that almost 25 % of diseased rural people are unable to seek any kind of medical help and more than 58% of hospitalized patients end up taking heavy loans.
Let us hope that in the near future, this visionary and futuristic pediatric centre that is coming up, thanks to dedicated doctors and generous philanthropists, can tackle such rural and urban health problems and serve as a good and enterprising model for India.
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