The multi-speciality medical institute Medanta officially took over the Abdur Razzaque Ansari Memorial Weavers’ Hospital, on Sunday. Medanta CMD Naresh Trehan visited the Irba-based health centre and interacted with the doctors working there.
Talking to media personnels later, Trehan said, “Patients from medically-underserved States like Jharkhand often have to bear the double burden of treatment and journeying to other States; we intend to turn that round. In a period of months, medical services as per the Medanta standard will be delivered to the patients of Jharkhand and those from neighbouring states at a fraction of the cost.”
He stated that best machinery and equipment along with qualified professionals will be made available at Medanta Abdur Razzaque Ansari Memorial Weavers’ Hospital, a team of world-class cardiac surgeons already being sent here. Multi-speciality departments for neurosciences, diabetes, kidney ailments and others are to be started soon.
Within three to four years, around `150 crore will be invested in developing infrastructure and purchasing equipment. Answering a question about Medanta’s giving up Sadar Hospital, Trehan said, “We are a professional organisation, not a corporate one. We do not work for profits. The primary reason behind this was the protests against Medanta running the district hospital.
The matter was wrongly politicised. So, it would have been difficult for us to work in such an environment despite full support of the state Government. Our aim is to provide state of the art medical facilities to all patients irrespective of their financial background.”
Protests erupted after the declaration that Medanta will supervise the super-speciality wing of Sadar Hospital in partnership with the state Government in PPP mode on grounds that handing over the reins to a private firm will make medical treatment costlier and out of reach for the poor.
“Doctors should be held accountable and treat their patients like family. But people tend to blame doctors for all their woes, which is wrong too. In my opinion, medical practitioners who have made a mistake should be punished but baseless allegations should be filtered out first. For this an independent screening committee should be set up for this,” Trehan said regarding irresponsible attitude shown by doctors.
He added, “We have strongly reprimanded any form of illicit financial favours accepted by doctors in our institution. Detection of such instances will result in strict action against the offender.”