City's third dedicated cardiac clinic

Come 2008, Calcutta will have a third “super-speciality” cardiac hospital.

Promoted by a group of Indian cardiologists based in Ohio (US), the 200-bed hospital will come up in New Town, Rajarhat. Work on the Rs-80 crore project is likely to start by the end of this year and the hospital will be operational by 2008.

Calcutta now has two “super-speciality” cardiac hospitals — BM Birla Heart Research Institute and Rabindranath Tagore International Institute for Cardiac Sciences.

“The Rajarhat facility will have state-of-the-art diagnostic and treatment facilities in both interventional and non-interventional cardiology,” said Ashis K. Rakhit, one of the promoters of the hospital and an interventional cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, Ohio.

“The state government has allotted two acres in Rajarhat for setting up the hospital. Two more acres will be needed for expansion,” he added. The doctors had applied for land two years ago on behalf of the Ohio Cardiology Associates Incorporation.

The hospital will provide “immediate interventional treatment” for heart attack patients. “Time is the key factor in the treatment of patients who suffer a heart attack,” Rakhit explained. “The optimum window period is three-four hours, after which the chance of recovery is minimal.”

At the New Town hospital, he pointed out, a heart attack patient will be taken to the cath lab within 45 minutes of arrival. “There will also be emergency angioplasty facilities to tackle such cases.”

Welcoming the move by the Ohio-based doctors, members of the city’s medical community said more “super-speciality” cardiac hospitals are needed in Calcutta, as instances of heart disorders have been rising by 15 to 20 per cent every year because of lifestyle changes, pollution, stress and other factors.

“One reason why super-speciality hospitals are not coming up here is that the required human resources and infrastructure are not readily available,” said city-based cardiac surgeon Kunal Sarkar.

One of the main benefits of a super-speciality clinic, he added, is the “broad spectrum” of disorders it deals with. “The more patients a hospital treats, the more experienced is its staff, including doctors.”

The cardiac hospital will be a boon for the fledgling township in Rajarhat, where the Tatas are setting up a cancer hospital and the Global Hospitals will open a multi-speciality unit.