Peripheral Clinic opened at PN Pudur
The commitment of G.Kuppuswamy Naidu Memorial Hospital (GKNMH) towards the community makes it a great place to receive care where personal relationship goes along with the medical excellence and the advanced technologies available there to make life worth living.
Over the years GKNMH has continuously grown along with the people living in and around Coimbatore region and is dedicated towards Hope, Healing & Recovery. It’s a place where many a memorable events have taken place in the past and the latest one is just an addition to it.
GKNMH has always treated its patients in a fair manner and that is the reason why it has opened a new Peripheral Clinic at P.N. Pudur, Coimbatore, keeping in mind how difficult it becomes for patients to come all the way to the acute care hospital and spend one full day just for consultation. The clinic was inaugurated by S.Pathy, President, The Kuppuswamy Naidu Charity Trust for Education and Medical Relief in the presence of Dr.Ragupathy Veluswamy, CEO, GKNMH, doctors and staff.
The Covai Mail spoke to Dr.Ragupathy Veluswamy
to know his views on the newly inaugurated clinic. He said, “We are opening a community center to address the needs of the local community. Normally if you see, about 80 percent of the diseases in our city can be treated by doctors in the Out-Patient Department (OPD) itself.
All cases are not required to come to the acute care hospital because upon visiting acute care hospital, patients end up getting a Lot of Tests done, Spend More Money and most importantly the Wait Time is prolonged”
Talking about community service Dr.Ragupathy says, “In a normal scenario people will have some common diseases. For curing these common diseases, firstly we need to teach preventive methods/preventive medicine and then promote healthy habits to avoid infections. In spite of all this, if an individual still falls sick, they can visit a primary care center like the one we have just started at P.N.Pudur.
We have experienced doctors who can treat these diseases locally at such primary care centers. Only if the solution provided at the primary center doesn’t work, the patients will have to come to the hospital where they will have to undergo some tests. Tests are need based. If it has to be done, we will do it else the patients are well examined at the clinic itself, decide what medicine needs to be given and treated accordingly”.
Talking about Preventive Medicine, he said “Our aim is to see what are the diseases we can prevent by putting injections. For example- During flu season, people should take flu injection; in case of Pneumonia, vaccination is compulsory for those above the age of 65. If people follow the above measures, they can easily avoid visiting acute care hospitals and spending huge sum of money”.
Talking to Dr.Vidya Kumaraswamy,
Director, Home Health Services, GKNM Hospital, who narrating her experience said, “From my experience, when patients are discharged from tertiary hospitals, they feel a little lost after a prolonged illness. At home, they don’t know how to take care of the patient? List of medication given is not followed many a times, managing a feeding tube etc becomes difficult. To bridge this gap at GKNMH we took an initiative to start the department of Home Health Service. Under Home health service, currently we have two vans going in different directions covering a radius of 20km in and around Coimbatore. We provide care for patient’s suffering from chronic diseases, who can be treated and taken care of at their own homes. The aim is to provide continuum of care by monitoring, providing preventive measures, empowering the patient and caregiver at home.
This initiative has helped a lot of people and we have covered more than 2000 visits and so far the service has been very successful and in demand. PN Pudur peripheral clinic has been started as part of our community based health care initiatives. The clinic will function by promoting good health practices among the community by implementing adequate preventive measures and initiating treatment at the earliest. The aim will be to provide medical care at an affordable cost”.
We also spoke with Dr. R.Rajith,
Family Physician & Palliative Care, GKNM Hospital who said, “There are two main reasons for opening a Peripheral Center over here. One is patients from Vadavalli, like we all know Vadavalli is a highly populated area and the common request of people coming from this area is that they find it very tedious to come all the way to the hospital and spend one full day just for an OP Consultation.
This has been the scenario and it is the elderly people who are the most affected. Hence, the idea of this clinic is to cater to such people. Initially, we will be setting it as a “Good Old Family Medicine”. Patients can come and talk about medical problems.
Most patients when they come out of the hospital don’t know what to do. The consultant may have told them to opt for a surgery because the hospital doctors usually don’t have much time to spend with the patients”. The patients want to come, sit with their family physician, discuss and then take a proper decision after discussing with their family. Unfortunately, it all consumes a lot of time and with the busy schedule, specialists do not have much time.
Dr. R.Rajith mentioned “We are also going to run a home based care for patients who are not able to visit our doctors; our doctors can go out and see all of them. So, like I said before, the initial idea is to set it up as a family medicine and then over a period of time we will slowly bring one or two consultants like Cardiologist, Diabetologist and likewise.
They may come here once a week hence the patients need not come all the way to the hospital. We want to set up a service that will cater to the local people living in the area.
For example- if a patient says, “I need to see a cardiac specialist for Blood Pressure”, it is not necessary because if a generalist has good experience of the same he can take care of it in a perfect way. The center will focus on family medicine and then spread out to patients to provide specialist care”.
With the newly inaugurated Peripheral Clinic, people are sure to benefit a lot since most of their problems could now be solved. The clinic has a pharmacy which will function from 9 A.M.- 5 P.M. initially and one of the best advantages is that it provides home care. Considering the busy schedule in today’s era, it is very much the need of the hour.
Dr.V.Nirmala,
Senior Medical Officer, GKNMH Peripheral Clinic said, her area of Specialization is Gestational Diabetes and she will look into complications arising out of the same.
She said, the center will look into minor ailments and only emergency cases will be referred to GKNM Hospital. She also mentioned that it will function primarily as a day care center and said that pharmacy store is also available for the benefit of people and that prices will be affordable for all.
Dr.S.Kohilavani, Medical Officer, GKNMH Peripheral Health Center- Vadavalli spoke to us and said that she takes care of the Brindavan Senior Citizen Care Center at Vadavalli and Thondamuthur. “We run clinics at 3 of the brindavan senior citizen centers which caters for 450 residents. The service we provide – Outpatient clinic with consultation, Lab services and home delivered Pharmacy services”.
Reporter : Renald A.Frank
Photos: Sathish Babu