Singh: Medicare with a global perspective. Picture by Pabitra Das

Health tourism may be the buzzword in Writers’ Buildings today, but 42B Park Mansions is where it’s all happening.

Thirty-five-year-old Australian tourist Sue Ann Plenkovich was detected with a neuro emergency in Darjeeling. She was air-evacuated from Bagdogra to Calcutta, opened up by neurosurgeon Indrajit Roy at Park Nursing Home the same night and was back on her feet in two weeks. The other option — to fly her back Down Under — could have caused “irreversible damage”.

For travellers in any kind of medical distress in these parts, the “first point of contact” is more often than not Asia Rescue & Medical Services (ARMS).

Francois Belle, a Dutch social worker frequently in town, needed cardiac bypass surgery. His lower-limb paralysis added to the crisis and his insurance firm wanted to fly him out. But the 82-year-old insisted he be treated here and went under the knife. He is now stable.

Thanks largely to Anraj Singh, medical director, ARMS, who has been doing his bit to change perception of the city’s medical capabilities since 1992, from his Park Street address. “We handle travel and medical assistance for more than 30 foreign insurance companies in entire South Asia, from Pakistan to Thailand. So, the moment overseas tourists land in South Asia, their medical needs are in our hands,” explains Singh, a physician.

Going by recuperation records, they seem to be in good hands. Ask Sabine Causse Muller who suffered a tri-malleolar fracture with dislocation of right ankle in the Northeast and was flown in on a specially-equipped aircraft, to be operated on successfully two days later. Or Robert Brash, who was sent home to London on an air-stretcher chain via Goa after his impacted femur fracture was fixed here with “scrupulous care”.

With eight “dedicated, specially-trained personnel” at his disposal, and a wide network of doctors, hospitals and travel agents all across South Asia, Singh is equipped to provide “comprehensive medical cover” for travellers, 24x7, 365 days. “We even had to retrieve the body of a Czech national from the Himalayas once, on his family’s request, six months after he died and was buried following a climbing accident north of Pokhra,” recalls Singh.

“His efforts have helped put our work in global perspective,” says cardiac surgeon Kunal Sarkar, who operated on Francois Belle. And what does the lone ranger on Park Street want from Writers’ Buildings to boost emergency medical tourism — a pressurised aircraft on standby to evacuate patients out of the Northeast and Bangladesh.