Dr Purshottam Lal, Chairman, Metro Group of Hospitals

With the aim of providing healthcare to all at par with international standard Padmashree, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Dr Purshottam Lal, Chairman, Metro Group of Hospitals, in conversation with Ekta Srivastava elaborates more on the technological development for patients betterment.

What are the technological advancements your hospitals have introduced lately in different verticals?
We strongly believe that technological advancements are almost always for betterment of patient care. For a patient the most important thing is the best of the equipment, best of the doctor and best of the quality. If you can provide these three things to a patient, there is nothing else which a patient need. We provide an additional thing; we respect the price of the human life. In a country where a large number of population are common people or a low middle class people, who cannot afford the major of the advance technology and where you work on it, we work on it, we make sure that we make a very minimal profit to keep the things going on. Now as regards, the technology in different verticals, like cardiology, we have anything and everything  which a cardiac department or the cardiac hospital can have in the world. We have cath labs from GE and Siemens. In addition, our hospital has a niche that patient do not have to undergo bypass surgery though we do all complex cases. We have most advanced electrophysiology department manned by fully trained electro-physiologist. The reason is a lot of foreign visitors come and watch our procedures.

In Radiology, we have advanced 500 sliced CT scan, and we have been told by the GE Company, so that far it is the best in the North India. Our Pulmonary Department is very advanced, special ultrasound called Intravascular Ultrasonic (IVUS), wherein the vessel wall and blockage can be visualized from within leading to precise stent deployment and thereby reducing potential complication of stent deployment such as acute or sub acute blockage of the stent following clot formation within it.

We have also introduced bio-absorbable stents where the stent dissolves completely in about two years time thereby leaving no metal mass within the vessel. We have also started nonsurgical replacement of narrow aortic valve wherein an artificial valve is deployed across the original and natural diseased valve thus ob- Dr Purshottam Lal Chairman, Metro Group of Hospitals march / 2014 ehealth.eletsonline.com 37 viating the need for traumatic open heart surgery with its attendant morbidity and likely death. We are also in the process of starting nonsurgical repair of leaking mitral valves by transcatheter and non-surgical means.

Also read: New Healthcare Trends in 2019

In addition, we also do outpatient coronary angiography, which we call metro coronary clinic, where we have done 27,000 cases. Today, we have fully operational 12 hospitals, where one is completely dedicated to cancer

Do you think multi-specialty hospitals are gaining popularity these days?
Multi-specialty hospital are the need of the day, where you can provide a good team care. Today, people are getting very health conscious and they want a place where everything is easy accessible. In any multi-specialty hospital different departments and specialties are located under one roof as a result of which a patient can consult different doctors of different specialties easily. Another advantage is that a doctor from a particular specialty is readily available should a complication arise during the course of treatment of a particular illness. This particularly holds true while treating patients from abroad who would be scared of visiting different hospitals for different complaints.

 What kind of emergency services do you have?
Our hospital is well equipped to handle all sorts of cardiac emergencies such as acute heart attack, acute onset of severe breathing difficulty (acute heart failure) which may be due to acute heart attack or due to some serious problem in one of the heart valve. We also get patients with severe breathing difficulty due to blockage of one of the vessel to the lung secondary to migration of blood clot from within one of the veins in the leg. Occasionally we get patients with severe chest pain secondary to tearing of inner wall of the aorta i.e. major blood vessel arising from the heart.

Kindly update us on any of your landmark initiative on healing a critical disease.
We had the privilege of treating a 74 -year-old patient with severe and inoperable blockages in his heart vessels which was associated with severe weakening of heart pump with resultant low blood pressure and extremely poor overall condition. This patient was treated on left arterial-femoral artery bypass support, wherein oxygen rich blood was withdrawn from within the heart by using a roller pump and sending this blood back to the body through the groin artery; this ensured complete rest to left ventricle i.e. pump of the heart which sends oxygen rich blood to different parts of the body. While on pump, his blockages in heart vessels were treated by ballooning and stenting there by providing complete rest to heart. The patient withstood the procedure well and discharged 5 days later in a stable condition.

While, two years back, we have treated a 14 year old child who suffered from high cholesterol and had angina. When we did the angiography his left main valve was block, which was the first case in the medical literature where we have put the stent and cured him making him the youngest patient to get treated. Similarly, we have treated the oldest patient of 104 year with the same problem.

What are the achievements witnessed by the institute so far?
We have the distinction of performing a large number of angioplasty (procedure of opening blocks in heart vessels) which is one of the highest in the country. We have also closed heart holes in children and young adults by different techniques. On 12th July, 2004, our centre had the unique distinction of performing nonsurgical replacement of aortic valve using core valve for the first time in the world. We have also treated a critically ill patient with a heart hole, narrowing of pulmonary valve and severe blockages in all heart vessels by non-surgical means. We have also introduced the technique of performing angiography and angioplasty through arteries of the hand, namely radial or brachial arteries, a technique which minimizes discomfort to the patient and also drastically reduces the volume of contrast agent used during the procedure. In addition, we treat patients from economically poorer sections of the society.

How are you planning to give a sustainable quality healthcare?
My mission is to provide latest advancements in cardiology and cardiac surgery to patients admitted in this hospital at an affordable cost. The overheads and expenses in running a super specialty hospital like ours is steadily increasing which do not necessarily reflect in the money we charge from our patients. This shrinks our profit margin but at the end of the day we have the satisfaction of doing our bit for welfare of the society in general. And while setting up this hospital, I had a dream that even a rickshaw puller can have courage to enter the premises without any hesitation and I had achieved that.

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