Come September, cardiac patients can directly head to the cardiac catheterisation laboratory at the super-speciality hospital of the Indian Railways in Karbighaiya.

The management of the laboratory would soon get the able guidance of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Patna.

The cardiac cath lab, developed at Rs 6 crore, was inaugurated at the railway hospital on Saturday.

Sources said the railway ministry had approved the proposal and the matter would be put at the meeting of the AIIMS-Patna institute body for final nod.

"The AIIMS cardiologists have come from reputable hospitals such as Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences (SGPGI), Lucknow. Since its inception, the doctors of the cardiology department have not been able to take critical cases because of lack of facilities. They were disappointed because the standing finance committee of AIIMS-Patna recently rejected the proposal of purchase of heart lung machine, a necessary machine for heart surgeries. So if AIIIMS-Patna doctors are given the chance to work in the cardiac cath lab facility of railways, not only would it benefit AIIMS doctors but would also benefit people because they would get treatment from AIIMS doctors at the facility," said a cardiologist at AIIMS-Patna.

The super-speciality hospital cardiac cath lab happens to be second such facility in the government set-up after the one at Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences.

The laboratory, useful in performing major heart surgeries, is missing in the state's only government heart hospital, Indira Gandhi Institute of Cardiology, and even in AIIMS-Patna.

According to experts, a cardiac cath lab alone can treat 50-60 per cent of the heart ailments.

It is equipped with a set of instrument, including monitors, injector pump, X-ray software and diagnostic catheters among other machines, which provide treatments such as angiography, angioplasty, pacemaker insertion and bypass surgery among others.

AIIMS-Patna director G.K. Singh said: "We would soon sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the railway ministry in the issue. The ministry has approved the proposal, which we would put up in our institute body's meeting shortly for the final nod."

East Central Railway deputy general manager (general) Subodh Kumar said: "The MoU would be signed shortly and AIIMS-Patna doctors would start working in the lab from the first week of September."