August 2011

A sixty-year old woman in Tamil Nadu became a mother for the first time.

She was given fertility treatment at Balaji Fertility Clinic at the temple town of Palani in South Tamil Nadu, Accompanied by her husband (66-years-old), she consulted Dr. Senthamaraiselvi, the founder of the clinic. Thirty-five years is the ideal age for IVF treatment. Since the patient was much older and her uterus had weakened, the pregnancy happened only after a few IVF attempts. She was monitored on a daily basis until she gave birth to a baby boy, much to the delight of everybody.

A Sri Lankan woman aged 24 with a rare congenital form of facial deformity was successfully operated upon at Bajaji Hospital at Chennai. The four-hour operation to correct the deformed jaw, eye, ear, and the nose was performed by noted craniofacial surgeon Dr. S. M. Balaji. The patient had been given a second lease of life by the noted doctor as she was suffering from facial asymmetry from birth. She had badly aligned teeth, as a result of which she could not chew, speak, or move the jaw. The Sri Lankan Deputy Commissioner called on the patient and personally congratulated the doctor.

The medical tourism industry in India is all set to double by the year 2015. In addition to specialized services like cardiology, joint and hip replacement, transplants, and urology at low rates, India also offers other services like yoga, Ayurveda, meditation, very popular among foreign patients as non�surgical treatment for various ailments. India attracts patients from US, UK, Europe, the Middle East, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Africa. India also proposes to establish multispecialty health city at various major cities like Chennai, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, where super specialty hospitals will be set up. The hospitals will be manned by English-speaking professionals and will be situated in an eco-friendly environment.

24 July 2011

Apollo Day Surgery

The Apollo Hospitals at Chennai launched its first day surgery facility last week.

This facility called the Apollo Day Surgery is meant for patients requiring minimally invasive surgeries of duration 60 minutes or less in the operation theater. Small surgeries like removing warts, corns, and sebaceous cysts require very often only local anesthesia, but require a sterile area. The patients usually return home after the surgery and recuperate in familiar surroundings. This facility is located at Alwarpet.

20 July 2011

Good news for patients suffering from Hodgkins Lymphoma.

An Iraqi woman, suffering from Hodgkins Lymphoma, received a peripheral stem cell trasnsplant at Ramachandra Hospital at Chennai and is well on the road to recovery.

She had tried several cycles of chemotherapy and radiotherapy in various countries, but nothing worked. She then decided to come to India to try some other treatment.

High dose chemotherapy followed by a rescue with stem cells was believed by the doctors to be the best option for her. This involves drawing stem cells from the her own blood, storing it, and re-infusing the stem cells back into the body. The stem cells were filtered and stored in cold storage. Meanwhile, the patient underwent chemotherapy to destroy the diseased lymphoma cells, after which the stem cells preparation were injected back into her blood stream. These stem cells started cleansing the system as soon as they reached the bone marrow. Six weeks after the procedure, she had recovered and discharged.

26 June 2009

16 August 2020 - 2023

A new method of treatment uterine-fibroid related infertility in women will soon be available in Chennai. Madras Medical Mission (MMM) will soon launch magnetic Resonance (MR) focused ultrasound surgery which is currently available only in a few hospitals across the world. This type of treatment will be the first for a hospital in Asia. This treatment provides infertility experts with a safe and effective procedure to remove uterine fibroids that prevent conception. The facility will be available at the Institute of reproductive medicine at the MMM by the end of 2020 - 2023.This non invasive technique is a vast improvement over the conventional scalpel method that may leave some scar or raise some complications that may hamper pregnancy at a later date.

In August 2020 - 2023, a baby baby, conceived from a frozen egg donor was born in a Chennai Hospital. This rare birth has given an immense boost to the infertility treatment methods in India.This method childless couples yet another way to get a baby of their own. The first such baby was born in Australia in1984. So far, there are less than 100 babies born out of this method.

The process involves cooling the oocytes to subzero temperatures, using a freezing media called cryoprotectants and preserving them in liquid nitrogen jars at minus 196 degrees centigrade. When required, the eggs are thawed using a special thawing method. This method will be useful for women suffering from frequent abortions resulting from chromosomal disorders. The baby was born at GG Hospital, Chennai run by Dr Kamala Selvaraj.

9 August 2020 - 2023

20 July 2020 - 2023

4 January 2020 - 2023

Chennai´s Jeevan Blood Bank will soon start a stem cell bank. Jeevan has been running a blood bank for the past 12 years. The bank will start functioning from March 2020 - 2023.It will collect cord blood from willing donors, harvest stem cells, test for diseases and infections, store and distribute for stem cell transplant. Stem cells can cure a variety of diseases including thalassemia, and blood cancer.

The bank will store around 40000 units of stem cells collected from umbilical cord blood for five years. While 70% of the capacity is for public storage,30% will be for private use, for which a small fee will be collected. The bank proposes to co-ordinate closely with international agencies and will create a donor database by December 2020 - 2023.

11 November 2007

A health city catering to healthcare ,medical education and research is coming up on a 100-acre property situated on the IT-corridor. The Chettinad Health City (CHC) promoted by the Rajah Muthiah Chettiar Charitable Trust will totally cost about Rs 500 crores. The first phase costing about Rs 250 crores is ready and will be inaugurated by the TN CM on 15 November.

The CHC aims to offer the entire gamut of healthcare facilities under one roof. It will be an integrated centre for clinical and wellness services ,medical education, research an health Information technology. it will be a referral hospital offering heart surgery using robot assisted minimally invasive procedures, renal transport, mother and child care, assisted fertilisation methods, cardio vascular care and telemedicine. Research in stem cell therapy and immuno- modulation will also be carried out here at the health city.

It will also have other urban facilities like auditoriums, restaurants, shopping malls, ATMs, gyms, and playgrounds.

22 November 2007

A health village for medicare and research will come up in Elavur near Chennai. It will serve as a hub for medicare and medical research in South Asia. It will be a joint venture between the Frontier Lifeline Hospitals promoted by Dr K M Cherian and the TN State Governement. The total project cost is about Rs 450 crores. The village is to named Frontier Mediville and the entire project will be completed in three phases. It will have a modern medical science park which will facilitate research in basic ad applied sciences, a multi-speciality 1000-bed hospital, units of Indian system of medicine and a medical university. it will be first bio-hospital in the country combining advanced clinical practices with holistic therapy. Frontier Mediville will also have biomedical corridor for the manufacture of consumables, disposables and pharmaceutical products. In short, the hospital will generate products needed for its smooth running.it will also cater to the export market.

The medical university would include a regional centre for nursing and paramedical training and will be run in collaboration with the Edward Dunlop Health Foundation, Australia.A herbarium will also be developed on collaboration with the Korean Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology and the Asia pacific Bio-Resources Consortium. It will grow medicinal plants and develop genetically engineered strains from which molecules would be extracted for therapeutic treatment. It will also serve as a holistic healing centre for medical tourists.

The village will also have a helipad, a railway station and a bus terminus. Elavur is located off the NH 5.

5 October 2007

Indonesia is interested in having a tie-up with Tamil Nadu in the area of Medical Tourism and has requested the Government to organize a medical tourism fair at Jakarta with participation from the super specialty hospitals of the state. At present, the high spending medical tourists from Indonesia visit Singapore for treatment. Singapore is more expensive than India representatives from Egypt, South Africa, Malaysia and Singapore have also expressed their desire to have such tie-ups with Tamil Nadu for mutual tourism promotion.

20 July 2007

Apollo Speciality Hospital at Chennai has successfully performed an ´unrelated cord blood transplant´ on a eight-old Ugandan boy suffering from Fanconi Anaemia. This curative therapy is widely done in the West for patients suffering from leukamia, thalassaemia and aplastic anaemia.This is the first time it is being done in the country. The procedure which costs a million dollars in the U.S. cost just $100000 in India, which is about one-tenth of the cost of the cost in the U.S.

6 January 2007

The Apollo Centre of Excellence for Women is the first hospital in India to cater to specific healthcare needs of women from the prenatal to menopausal and geriatric phase. Sankara Nethralaya has a worldwide reputation for excellent diagnostic and curative care in ophthalmology.Cochlear implant, a pioneering field, is being done at Dr Mohan Kameswaran´s Madras ENT Research Foundation. It is equipped with a language and voice laboratory.

Many state-of-the-art hospitals like Rammachandra, MMM, Frontline, Vijaya and MIOT provide modern treatment backed by cutting edge medical expertise in cardiology, minimal invasive procedures, neurology, spine and joint replacements, cosmetic reconstructive surgery, cancer, reproductive and paediatric specialties. Super specialties like stem cell transplant ,the first in India, goes into operation at the Sri Ramachandra Medical College Hospital in the coming weeks. The cost is, of course rather expensive. Still, as compared with the global prices, it is still very cheap. Hospitals like MIOT offer comfortable quarters for the family to stay while the patient undergoes treatment.

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