Govt hospitals in Telangana on par with private ones in taking-up complex surgeries

OGH, NIMS and Gandhi Hospital frequently perform high-end surgeries on a par with private hospitals in Telangana

Hyderabad: Till recently, corporate hospitals in Hyderabad were the dominant force when it came to conducting complex surgeries related to cardiology, organ transplantation, orthopedic knee replacement surgeries and Cochlear Implants (CI) for hearing-impaired children. Patients invariably had to access such healthcare facilities in private hospitals either through State-run Aarogyasri, private health insurance coverage or foot the bill from their own pockets.

For the past 18 months, however, things have started to change with government hospitals stepping-up and frequently taking-up complex surgeries and in the process providing an alternative for poor patients. With the Telangana government managing to establish new Modular Operation Theatres (OTs) and reduction of patient load at Outpatient (OP) wings due to Basthi Dawakhanas, tertiary hospitals like OGH, NIMS, Gandhi Hospital and MNJ Cancer Hospital are now able to offer complex procedures free of cost to patients. At Gandhi Hospital, for the past one-year, the surgeons are routinely conducting orthopedic surgeries, in addition to carrying out CI implants, angiograms, implanting stents and renal transplants.

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“It’s not just Aarogyasri patients, we are even conducting surgeries like knee implants for patients not covered under any insurance scheme. We are procuring implants and providing them for free of cost. More than 100 renal transplants have been taken up so far,” says Superintendent, Gandhi Hospital, Dr M Raja Rao. In the coming months, the Gandhi Hospital will also launch liver and heart transplant surgeries, once the construction of a centralized transplant facility is completed.

“There is no denying the fact that in the last few years, tertiary government hospitals in Hyderabad are offering health care facilities that are on par with corporate facilities,” Dr Raja Rao said. At OGH, despite infrastructure difficulties, life-saving emergency procedures for heart attack patients, kidney transplants and complex surgeries by the department of gastroenterology, orthopedics and general surgery are taken up.

The nephrology and urology wing of OGH has so far conducted 23 liver transplants, one pancreas transplant and nearly 620 kidney transplants. In fact, the cardiology wing of OGH, through ST-Elevation Myocardial Infarction (STEMI) hub-and-spoke model, is saving the lives of 200 to 250 heart attack patients every month. “In the last 12 months, we have done a lot of tough surgeries that earlier were not possible. All because of lot of encouragement from the State government, CSR activities in OGH by companies and voluntary organisations,” says Superintendent, OGH, Dr B Nagender.

Taking high-end surgeries at government hospitals to the next level, recently robotic surgeries were launched at NIMS Hospital. Among government hospitals, the NIMS leads in conducting renal transplant surgeries in Telangana. The surgeons regularly conduct rare and complex renal surgeries on paediatric cases and complex heart procedures like deployment of artificial pulmonary valve through right femoral vein and closing Atrial Septal Defects (ASD) in heart.