Retired NRI surgeon in the USA tie up with AHMEDABAD
Municipal Corporation's hospitals

 

Ahmedabad: June 13, 2004
Express News Service


Shardaben and LG to enter agreement with EMSC to provide better trauma care facilities.



Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation is finalising plans to join two of its hospitals with Emergency Medical Services Company, a non-profit company being floated by a retired NRI surgeon based in the USA, to upgrade their trauma care facilities. The plan also aims at linking AMC hospitals with corporate hospitals for inter-hospital transfer of trauma patients in the city.

The civic hospital committee passed a proposal for this on May 21 and sent it for standing committee approval. It was discussed at the standing committee meeting of June 12 where it was put in abeyance. Hospital committee deputy-chairman Dr Vidyut Desai, however, said that the proposal was passed in his absence, though it was known that he had his own reservations about it. ‘‘There are things that need to be clarified, like, who will be held responsible for medico-legal problems... I am yet to see any concrete proposal and memorandum of understanding fixing responsibilities and power of participating hospitals, their staff etc... But the proposal is passed by health committee in my absence,’’ he said. The two civic hospitals that are likely to join EMSC are Shardaben Chimanlal Hospital (Saraspur) and Lallubhai Gordhandas Hospital (Maninagar). They should be signing a contract with EMSC whereby they will be required to upgrade their trauma units, fully quipped with all modern gadgets and facilities. Under this arrangement, primary treatment to all trauma patients will be provided free of cost until the patient gets stabilised. While Shardaben is likely to get financial support of Rs 1.67 crore from the civic body for upgrading its trauma care facilities, Lallubhai Hospital expects to get Rs 1.2 crore. Besides upgrading trauma wards, purchase of high-tech ambulances is on the cards. These ambulances will carry life-saving equipment like portable ventilators, etc.


V S General Hospital was also asked to sign an agreement but its board of management rejected the proposal on the ground that being run by an autonomous board, it was not obligatory on its part to join any such initiative of AMC. ‘‘The proposal did come up to the board why at all should VS Management Board sign it when there is no guarantee of transparency in management,” says Dr Sukumar Mehta, a member of the VS Hospital Management Board.

EMSC, it is learnt, is the brainchild of Dr Haren Joshi, retired NRI surgeon in the USA. He is expected to collect Rs 4 crore from US surgeons, mainly members of the American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin, while Rs 50 lakh each will be contributed to its corpus of Rs 5 crore by the State government and the AMC.

Standing committee chairman Jayantilal Parmar, who was away in the USA for past few weeks, said he could give more details next week.