A patient at one of the Apollo hospitals

Jorhat, March 14: Blurring the distinction between healthcare and hospitality services, Visakhapatnam’s Apollo Hospital is planning to appoint Assamese paramedical staff to make patients from the state “feel more at home”.

The hospital, part of a healthcare group whose reach extends beyond Indian shores, receives hundreds of patients from Assam and the rest of the Northeast every month. Dr Dibyajyoti Kumar Baruah, a cardiologist at the hospital, told the media here on Friday that the hospital had been witnessing “a steady flow” of patients with cardiac disorders.

“With nurses and attendants from Assam, patients who have to stay at the hospital for at least 15 days of treatment will feel comfortable and at home,” he said.

Dr Baruah, who hails from Jorhat, was in town to attend the two-day all-India cardiologists’ meet that began yesterday at the Regional Research Laboratory.

The Visakhapatnam branch of Apollo is favoured by cardiac patients from Jorhat primarily because of Dr Baruah’s presence there.

“I feel great when patients from my native state visit the hospital. I feel as if I am treating one of my family members. Though it is not part of my duty to look into the financial matters of the hospital, I do my best to help needy patients,” he said.

The cardiologist recently helped a young housewife, Jharna Ghosh from Jorhat, get a valve replaced through minimally invasive surgery for less than the normal hospital fees. “I will never forget his caring touch when I was in hospital,” Ghosh said.

She confirmed that the hospital authorities reduced the fees for her treatment by about Rs 20,000 on Dr Baruah’s request.

Dr Baruah said changing food habits and reduced physical activity, coupled with addiction to smoking, was the reason behind the high incidence of heart disease in Assam. “It is the same phenomenon throughout the country and, if preventive measures are not taken, the scenario will be terrible in the next 20 years,” the cardiologist said.

Quoting World Health Organisation statistics, Dr Baruah said if people were not educated on preventive steps, 20 out of every 100 people would suffer from heart ailments by 2020.

He said the US faced similar problems in the late seventies and early eighties, but awareness programmes brought down the rate of incidence considerably. “The mushrooming of fitness clinics, abstention from tobacco and increased awareness about the importance of good food habits played their part,” he said.