Mysuru: The Jayadeva Heart Hospital in the K.R. Hospital premises, in its seven years of service, has treated nearly five lakh patients, performed 22,000 angioplasty and 1.5 lakh people have undergone echo-cardiology test, said Dr. C.N. Manjunath, Director, Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, Bengaluru.

He was speaking at a function to mark the World Heart Day organised by the  Janaspandana Trust at a private hotel in city on Oct. 13 and said, “On Aug. 12, 2010, the Jayadeva Heart Hospital was started. It was decided to provide five-star facility in Government Hospitals too and hence Jayadeva hospitals were started in Bengaluru, Mysuru and Kalaburagi.

There are nearly 1,500 beds combined in all the hospitals. The same quality of treatment provided at Bengaluru hospital is also provided at Mysuru  hospital, he said.

The State Government, realising that there is a huge demand as people from neighbouring districts are coming to the hospital in Mysuru, decided to expand the facility and is putting up a 350-bedded hospital at a cost of Rs. 150 crore in the PKTB Sanatorium premises on KRS Road. Equipment worth Rs. 50 crore is being purchased from the internally-accrued funds of the hospital. Hence, open heart surgeries can be performed in Mysuru, said Dr. Manjunath.

“In Jayadeva Hospital, the poor and destitute are the VIPs. Along with them, the rich and the foreigners also come here for heart treatment. However, the policy here is to treat the poor and the rich on an equal footing and the quality of treatment remains  the same,” he said.

Dr. Manjunath said that sanctioning grants to the hospital is not important. But what is important is to implement it. Again, it is not important to computerise but what is more important is to simplify the processes.

“Doctors try their best to provide quality treatment and put their best efforts to save the lives of the patents. However, a couple of times treatment might fail and despite the best efforts of the doctors, the patient may lose his life. Then relatives of the patient and even the people’s representatives create a ruckus and doctors are attacked for no fault of theirs,” he said.

Elaborating, Dr.Manjunath said this is the reason why doctors hesitate to serve in rural areas. This sort of an attitude and mindset of the people must go, as doctors cannot operate in an atmosphere of fear and hostility, he felt.

MLA M.K. Somashekar and MyLac Chairman H.A. Venkatesh felicitated Dr. Manjunath and Dr. K.N. Sadananda, Chief of Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiology, Mysuru, on the occasion.

Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences former Vice-Chancellor Dr. Ravindranath presided.

CSI President Dr. Rajagopal, former Dean of MMC&RI Dr. B. Krishnamurthy and others were present during the programme.

Decentralisation leads to quality treatment

Government Hospitals can provide the best of treatments. However, only when there is decentralisation of power can the hospitals provide result-oriented treatments. If equipment is damaged, to get the spare parts, we will have to write to the Government. But, even after six months nobody in the Government will even bother to look at it. It is sad to say that the amount of power a PDO or an AEE enjoys, the chiefs of the hospitals do not have. Understanding this problem, the Government should decentralise and give power to the hospital chiefs.     

 

Visit three places to understand life

People should visit three important places to understand what life is all about. They should visit the hospital to understand about patients, visit jail and see the prisoners to realise the importance of freedom and visit crematorium or burial grounds to understand the meaning of life. Understanding the problems faced by the people, Jayadeva Hospital has changed its earlier policy to “First treatment then payment.” We are rendering our service with this slogan. Earlier, only after paying Rs. 2,000 as admission fee, the patients were admitted to the hospital.  However, after seeing the plight of the poor, this rule has been changed. Including the BPL card, if the patients do not have other vital documents, they will still be admitted.

—Dr. C. N. Manjunath