India Times
01 May 2010
By K Mohanachandran Nambiar
Manipal, India
Kasturba Hospital–Manipal has launched a new programme in health care on Friday. Former chief secretary of Karnataka, Sudhakar Rao, has inaugurated the Manipal Home Care Programme.
Ramdas M Pai, chancellor, H S Ballal, pro–chancellor, Rajashekaran P Warrier, VC of Manipal University and Ranjan Pai, CEO of MEMG and others were present. A senior official of the Manipal University said, “Under this programme, Kasturba Hospital would extend hospital services to homes in a convenient and affordable manner. This will be one more service, rendered to the people, in keeping with the founder, the late Dr T M A Pais vision of providing high quality health care to society across the economic spectrum, both urban and rural.”
He added that benefits of this model of service are:
Patients receive care in their home in which they are most comfortable
Patients are able to live as near normal lifestyle as possible along with their family during the period of illness
Avoid the hassles of patient transport especially in a moribund state.
The programme is being launched in a phased manner. The first phase will cater to the needs of patients who are discharged from Kasturba Hospital Manipal. After being discharged from the hospital, the patient may still need medical care injections may need to be taken, blood tests done, dressing changed, blood pressure monitored.
This means, a recovering patient will need to keep coming back to the hospital on a fairly regular basis. This can be inconvenient especially for the elderly and children, those who live far away, those who are weak after an operation or for any who may find it inconvenient to make it to the hospital for after–care.
For all these, Homecare will be offered at their doorstep.
They said, to start with, Manipal Home Care will provide services like general nursing care, blood sugar monitoring, blood pressure check, wound care, dressing, suture removal, changing urinary/feeding tubes, collecting blood for laboratory investigations. Manipal Home Care Service is not an emergency service. Patients who need home care on discharge will be provided a leaflet comprising Manipal Home Care Service number, and when a patient/relative places a call, it will be received by a receptionist and the necessary information will be passed on to the Manipal Home Care team, which will initiate appropriate response within a reasonable time.
Manipal Home Care team comprises expert nurses, doctors, social workers, technicians and volunteers who are willing to provide all necessary care and support to the community at large.
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