The Army's Research & Referral Hospital in Delhi is one of the best equipped medical institutions in the country. It also symbolises the best traditions of military duty in the field of medicine
At the Army Hospital Research and Referral in New Delhi, former Finance, External Affairs and Defence Minister Jaswant Singh is the latest VVIP to be admitted. Unfortunately, he is in the intensive care unit on life support systems. Mr Singh’s highest qualification for entry to the R&R hospital — higher than his being the former Defence Minister — is that he is a soldier from the Central Indian Horse. He was brought to the hospital unconscious after he tripped in the kitchen of 15, Teen Murti lane, looking for his Jack Russell puppy.
Dogs make great buddies and fighters in battle too, warning against improvised explosive devices and keeping posts alert along line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir. Our 15-year-old cocker spaniel, Snoopy, lived ferociously until it succumbed to a cardiac arrest in my wife’s arms on the same day as the legendary fighter of The liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, V Prabhakaran, was killed in Sri lanka. Sasha, a British Army dog killed along with her handler in Afghanistan, was awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal, the animal version of the Victoria Cross, earlier this year.
The day after Mr Singh was admitted to the hospital, television OB vans had caused a huge traffic jam outside. Security was extremely tight. Still, some journalists managed to infiltrate the security cordon and reached near the ICU.
Nearly 200 MPs and practically all the key members of the Government, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as Army chief General Dalbir Singh Suhag have visited R&R Hospital to enquire about Mr Singh, who is still comatose after Army specialists performed the equivalent of a commando operation in a life saving, radical brain surgery.
According to doctors from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, R&R is providing the best care and treatment available in India and the near abroad. The hospital’s Burn Centre, one floor above the ICU, has been converted into the visitors’ meeting point, where Mr Singh’s family is available to provide health reports.
Spread over 156 acres, the R&R hospital is the Indian Army’s crown jewel. It is a self-contained complex, growing in systems and expertise, since it was operationalised in 1997, with nearly a 1,000 beds and a 150 crisis-expansion bed capacity. While the base hospital caters to garrison troops in greater Delhi, R&R provides medical care, which is at par with the best in the country, to Armed Forces personnel from across the country.
Specialised care comes from state-of-the-art multi-specialty treatment and intervention from anything and everything to do with all organs of the body as well as infertility — called Assisted Reproductive Technique Centre. There was a time when soldiers returning from the extreme cold of Siachen would encounter sexual disorders which in many cases was a psychological problem.
A comprehensive range of training, with recognised diplomas and degrees, is also provided, making R&R a one-window medical institution whose mission is to provide hope and the best healthcare through integrated, clinical and safe best practices while also creating a dynamic academic milieu.
That is why when one enquires about Mr Singh’s recovery, he or she is told that the accent is on hope resulting from care and treatment. That’s also why President Pranab Mukherjee, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, chose to send his wife to R&R two months ago and got her back revived and refreshed.
The once-chain-smoking Bimla Thapar, 97-year-old wife of Army chief General PN Thapar, who served as India’s Ambassador in Kabul, was in the family ward this month. When she suffered a cardiac arrest, the hospital’s hi-tech quick response team performed code blue procedures to revive her. Many ex-servicemen and their families also enjoy this unique opportunity of care and hope.
The extraordinary number of ‘thank you notes’ pinned in the wards testifies to the distinguished life saving services rendered. When General Suhag met Ms Thapar in the hospital, she sang for him the prayer Om Jai Jagdish. Ms Tshering Khendo Bhutia from Darjeeling is the first woman from the North-East to reach the two-star rank of Principal Matron. She was bestowed the Florence Nightingale award recently, as the virtual care master of R&R.
As a frequent visitor to Kabul, I have met several senior Afghan Army officers, some of whom studied at the Indian Military Academy in the 1970s. Many of them come here for their medical check-up. Afghan Army chief General Sher Mohammad Karim and his wife were here recently. Many officers and their dependents from countries belonging to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, notably Nepal, Bhutan and Afghanistan, have benefitted from R&R’s super-speciality treatment.
For those seeking medical education and research opportunities, the experience from 32 departments of tertiary care specialities is most rewarding and memorable. Some of the pearls in this crown jewel are in the variety of transplants: Knee and hip joint replacements to liver and stem cell procedures and cardiac transplantation, to name just a few. R&R boasts of a 43 per cent deceased organ conversion rate, the highest in the country.
Initially, Indian and British soldiers had separate hospitals. In 1917, a military hospital was constructed for Indian troops in Delhi cantonment. Five years later another larger hospital was made for British soldiers. The two were merged after Partition. During the 1965 war, the hospital managed more than 1,000 casualties. It was renamed as Army Hospital (R&R) and substantially expanded in its present location with cutting-edge technologies and state-of-the-art facilities.
It appears Defence Ministers in BJP-led Governments are accident-prone. During his visit to Vietnam, the great Socialist leader George Fernandes, who was then serving as Defence Minister, crawled through a maze of underground tunnels near Saigon. The next morning, while washing his clothes, he slipped and fell in his hotel bathroom. On his return to Delhi, he underwent a neuro-surgical procedure. Thereafter, he called China India’s number one threat.
Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav is a familiar sight in the hospital premises, as he usually visits the extremely sophisticated dental section. When Mr Jaswant Singh was rushed unconscious to the R&R, a team of neuro-specialists performed a delicate procedure. It has given hope for nature, prayer and medicine to wean him off the ventilator and breathe new life into a soldier and above all, a gentleman of honour, who refuses to fade away.
The Army’s R&R Hospital, in the best traditions of military duty, is doing its very best to put Mr Singh back on his feet.