Indian hospital opens telemedicine centre

By Waqar Gillani

LAHORE: India’s Apollo Hospitals, one of the largest chains of hospitals in Asia, has opened a telemedicine link up center, Lahore Apollo Information Centre, at a local clinic, Lahore Medical Imaging (LMI) Limited, in Garden Town. This is the first telemedicine center launch in Pakistan.

Sapna Tawari, the first commercial secretary of the Indian high commission in Islamabad, and Anne Marie Moncure, the managing director of Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi, inaugurated the centre on Tuesday.

The project will be utilised for the continuing medical education (CME) programme and healthcare advice. The Indian hospital will offer free treatment to poor patients. The project has been launched with the complete coordination of both sides’ governments.

Dr Farooq Rasool of the LMI, who will run the centre, welcomed the guests. The project’s launch was watched by all the centers of the group in India. Dr Prathap C Reddy, the group chairman, chaired the inaugural session.

Dr Reddy said that such centres could be opened in other cities, especially in Karachi. He said the group would extend services in many disciplines, except genetics, through the centre.

He said presently they had 64 centres in India and hoped that telemedicine would grow globally. He said the system had helped reduce treatment cost as patients living in rural areas could get treatment at local hospitals.

Dr Reddy called the project the strongest bond of caring between the two countries. “This will help build relations in the healthcare sector,” he said. He said the link would enable medical practitioners in Pakistan to access Indian experts for advice, allowing live discussions and ready transferability of medical records and images. The link up would enable Indian doctors to assist Pakistanis doctors in complex surgeries undertaken in Lahore, he said. The group would open centres in Bangladesh and other south Asian countries.

“The centre will also be used for the CME by local doctors enabling them to upgrade their skills by attending video conferences by Apollo specialists,” he said, “As part of a goodwill gesture, the first 100 tele-consultations will be conducted free of charge,” he said.

Ms Tawari said they could offer no other gift than compassion and care to the Pakistani people. She said the Indian government would also support those who wanted to get treatment in India.

Ms Moncure said telemedicine could bridge the healthcare divide and benefit patients living in both countries.

Dr Rasool told Daily Times that the project cost Rs 1.5 to 2 million. Apart from consultations, overall 20 patients a day could benefit from the service, said Dr Rasool. He said Rs 1,000 to 2,000 would be charged from each patient.

The Lahore-Delhi telemedicine link will enable doctors exchange views and interpretations on complex medical cases. A delegation of doctors from Apollo Hospitals will visit Pakistan in October.

The Apollo Hospitals group is a pioneer in telemedicine in India. The groups started its first project in 2000 at a village in Andhra Pradesh. Presently, the group runs 50 centres in rural and urban areas in Delhi, Hyderabad and Chennai.

Indraprastha Apollo Hospitals is the fourth largest corporate hospital in the world. The hospital has become the first choice for many governments and organisations, including the US, which chose the hospital as the official healthcare provider during the visit of the US president Bill Clinton.