Teleconference Treatment

Dean of G.Kuppuswamy Naidu Memorial Hospital Ramkumar Raghupathy (seated centre) along with other specialists at a teleconference with a Rural Health Centre at Anaikatti on Monday. Experts from G.Kuppuswamy Naidu Memorial (GKNM) Hospital consulted five patients with various health complications at the Swami Dayananda Jayavarthanavelu Tribal Rural Hospital, Anaikatti, through V-SAT on Monday.

The specialists interacted with the doctor of the rural health centre in Anaikatti, discussed the cases and suggested possible treatment options. Patients who needed surgery or further medical intervention would be treated free of cost at GKNM, Dean of the hospital Ramkumar Ragupathy said. The live interaction between the two centres was inaugurated on Monday by Swami Dayananda Saraswati of Anaikatti Rural Tribal Centre.

Describing the programme as the first step towards telemedicine taken by the hospital, Dr.Raghupathy observed that the concept was fast catching on in India, especially, with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) planning to install a satellite exclusively for telemedicine. The idea was to establish links with rural health centres and extend diagnostic facilities to places where people had no access to quality medical care. The ISRO had funded the telemedicine facility at the hospital worth Rs.50 lakh.

In India, 185 hospitals were connected through ISRO’s V-SAT, said M.Nagarajan, Consultant Radiation Oncologist and In-Charge of Telemedicine at the Valavadi Narayanaswamy Cancer Centre of the GKNM Hospital. The records of the patients at the rural centre would reach the specialists well in advance so that they could be ready to offer necessary suggestions to the doctor at the rural centre, he added. The telemedicine facility will be open at the hospital on all Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. The audio-visual facility enabled the specialists in the urban centres to guide the doctors placed in the rural centres. The concept of telemedicine saved the patients in rural areas the trouble of having to travel to the city.

The telemedicine facility was inaugurated in the hospital by former President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam earlier this year in May. GKNM had tied up with the rural health centre at Anaikatti as part of its outreach programme. It had also identified Veerapandi village for a similar programme. The hospital was planning to tie up with cancer institutes including the Tata Memorial Hospital in Mumbai, Adayar Cancer Institute, Chennai, and the Regional Cancer Centre, Thiruvananthapuram.

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