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.