PGI sends Rs 90 crore upgradation plan to Centre

Chandigarh, Sept 10M The Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) here plans to introduce highly advanced cancer and tumour detection and treatment technologies.

PGIMER Director Dr K K Talwar told UNI that a Rs 90 crore proposal has already been sent to the Centre to acquire new hi-tech medical equipments including Cyber Knife, PET Scan, Gamma Camera for upgradation and expansion of the existing departments.

The new equipments would help in better and prompt treatment of patients in the premier medical institute which caters to the entire northern region and examines more than 3500 patients daily in the outpatient department (OPD), he said.

The institute was eagerly waiting for the PET (Positron Emission Tomography) scanner used to find cancer, to check blood flow or to see how organs are working, Dr Talwar said.

''It is the most advanced cancer detection procedure, which scans the entire body at once detecting the disease especially in the breast, brain, lung, colon, prostate and lymphoma glands at early stages,'' he said.

In addition, the PET scan can also find poor blood flow to the heart, which may mean coronary artery disease.

At present PET scan facility, worth Rs 21 crore, is available only at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi in north India.

Elaborating upon the Rs 30 crore Dedicated Image Guide Whole Body Stereo Tactic Radio Surgery (Cyber Knife) project, Dr Talwar said it is a radiosurgery system designed to track, detect and correct tumours anywhere in the body.

Unlike traditional radiosurgery systems that can only treat tumors in the head and neck, the Cyber Knife can treat both intracranial and extracranial tumors and provides an additional option to patients diagnosed with previously inoperable or surgically complex tumors, he informed.

Dr Talwar said that the PGI urgently needs an additional Gamma Camera (SPECT-CT) -- as it's safe, reliable, and non-traumatic radio isotopic techniques provide not only anatomical information but also dynamic information of various changes taking place inside the body organs. Though the PGI already had two gamma cameras, due to heavy patient load on these instruments they have to sometime wait for as long as three months, he said.

Noting that there was no burns unit in any government hospital in the region, Dr Talwar said the PGI has decided to establish a 20-bedded Burns Unit at RS 6.7 crore along side the Platic Surgery Ward.

The Telemedicine Centre was required to expand the already functional Centre to provide 'at site' consultations by PGI specialists to medical kiosks established in Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, he said adding that the proposed facilities at the Rs 4.45 crore Centre would establish a framework for referral system for problems requiring care at the speciality centres.

Dr Talwar also stressed that there was a need to add new facilities in the existing departments. The Hepatology urgently needed a four-bedded Intensive Care Unit (ICU) and six high dependency beds to provide better care to the patients suffering from acute liver failure. An ICU was also needed in the Gastroenterology (GE) department as there was no GE ICU in any of the government intitutions in north, except Delhi, for the patients suffering from acute necrotising pencreatitis, massive gastroinstestinal bleeding and other diceases, he said.

Due to heavy patient load and long waiting lists, it was proposed to procure a new MRI unit (Rs 11 crore), a Bi Plane DSA (Rs 6.5 crore) to augment the angiographic facilities and Digital Radiography System (Rs 1.10 crore) to provide high quality images, he said.

UNI