Cheap dental implants at P’kula hospital soon

Ishrat S Banwait

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Tribune News Service

Panchkula, July 3

Soon, cheap dental implants will be available at the Civil Hospital in Sector 6 here. The hospital is working on developing infrastructure for the same and it is expected to be ready within two months. The hospital authorities informed that implants will be available at the centre at nominal charges.

At present, only private clinics and hospitals are providing dental implants in Panchkula. Their prices vary between Rs 15,000 and Rs 35,000 and hence, it is not affordable for all. With the implant centre coming to the hospital, it will be another service for patients after dialysis centre where dialysis is being done at around 40 per cent cost of what is available at private clinics and hospitals.

Dental implants are metal posts or frames that are surgically positioned into the jawbone beneath the gums. Once in place, they allow a dentist to mount replacement teeth onto them. It is not a onetime procedure and has to be followed up, which adds to the costs.

The implants are of various types, including fixed and removable. They also vary according to the need of a patient as one may have to get a tooth removed or may have cavity. In other cases, the number of implants required also varies and thus the costs may differ. The hospital is currently in the process of tendering the equipment.

Cath lab, mammography machine awaited

Under another public-private partnership, the hospital is set to open a cath lab at an estimated cost of Rs 9 crore and its opening is also awaited. Such cath labs will soon be set up in three other districts of Haryana as well. Later this year, the hospital will also buy a mammography machine for testing breast cancer. Principal Medical Officer Dr Veena Singh had earlier informed that they had received the approval for the same. The cost of the machine is in the range between Rs 80 lakh and Rs 90 lakh and the tests will either be done for free or at nominal charges. The tests cost as much as Rs 2,000 at a private hospital and between Rs 100 and Rs 300 at the GMSH- 16 in Chandigarh.