The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

HEALTH

Healing touch across border
Pak national in city for bypass surgery
Kuldip Bhatia

Ludhiana, June 22
The long standing love-hate relationship between India and Pakistan notwithstanding, people from Pakistan are now beginning to look towards India, at least for the high quality health care.

If observations made by Ashiq Hussain, a resident of Faisalabad in Pakistan, are any indication more and more people in Pakistan were now showing faith in the skills of Indian doctors, both for medical and surgical treatment, thereby generating a lot of goodwill between the people of two nations. Ashiq Hussain was in the city for an advanced cardiac check up at Hero DMC Heart Institute (HDHI).

Interacting with media persons here today, he remarked that India not only offered better medical facilities than Pakistan, but also the cost of treatment here was much lower.

The main reason for this phenomenon, he believed, was that the advanced medical facilities in India had percolated down even to the smaller towns, whereas in Pakistan these were few and far between.

“A cardiac bypass that costs in the range of Rs 1.25 lakh in India, entails an expenditure of above Rs 3 lakh in Pakistan. If our political differences do not come in the way, Pakistanis will come to India in thousands for their medical treatment,” said Hussein.

Elaborating further, he said a common Pakistani held a lot of affection and curiosity for India and for this very reason, India would be their first choice of destination for medical treatment if the borders were opened up.

Chief cardiologist and coordinator at the HDHI Dr G.S. Wander said if the two countries could cooperate, it would radically improve the health scene both in India and Pakistan.

“South Asians as an ethnic group are more prone to cardiac ailments than people of other continents. Therefore, as far as medicine is concerned, doctors from both sides of the border face similar type of challenges and our cooperation will go a long way in markedly improving our health scene”.

On the request of the visitors from Pakistan, Dr Wander assured them of all possible assistance on the part of the institution to ensure a hassle-free visa procedure for patients, who wished to come to India for their advanced medical treatment.

Diabetes expo
‘57.2 m diabetics in India by 2025’
CME for docs, latest treatment methods on display
Our Correspondent

Ludhiana, June 22
Prompted by the poor awareness about diabetes in India in spite of its high prevalence, SPS Apollo Hospitals here is organising a two-day exhibition “1st Diabetes Expo 2007” on the hospital premises from today.

The entry to this first of its kind programme will be free to public. Novo Nordisk, Roche, Eli Lilly, India Meditronics, Johnson & Johnson and Bayer’s were the main sponsors of the event.

Various other pharmaceutical companies were making their presence as co-sponsors of the mega expo, one of the largest shows ever held on diabetes in the country, Apollo director Jugdiep Singh said.

Addressing media persons here today, he said an unbelievably large number of Indians would be diabetics within the next quarter of the century, according to a recent study.

“India will have 57.2 million diabetes patients by the year 2025 as against 20 million now, says the National Urban Diabetic Survey (NUDS). At this rate, within 25 years, India will earn the dubious distinction of having the largest number of diabetics in the world”.

According to Dr S.P. Singh, COO and chairman of the expo, the objective of the programme was to educate and empower people so that they could manage diabetes better. The diabetes awareness expo would aim at providing an update to doctors in the region regarding the latest advances in diabetes care.

Some of the latest tools would be on display and pharmaceutical representatives would be available to demonstrate their products and provide the necessary literature to doctors. A CME for doctors on the “Recent Advances in Diabetes Care” would also be held during the course of the expo.

He said the product display stalls would showcase all the latest treatment options for diabetes available in India today.

These would include latest glucose lowering tablets, new insulins, new insulin needles and syringes that were shorter, thinner and painless, latest insulin pens that made it easy for patients to carry and self-inject insulin, latest insulin pumps for patients on insulin, latest glucometers and continuous glucose monitoring devices, food products, dietary supplements and footwear for diabetics.

The exhibition would also comprise a diet museum with the demonstration of diabetic diets and recipes.