Some interesting revelations of recent surveys on Heart ailment in India / Asia:
With the growing awareness towards heart disease, a number of world-standard Cardiac-Care-Centers have come up almost in every major city in India. While many of us can rejoice that most modern Cardiac facilities at international competitive rates are available, it is out of reach of 90% of the population in the country – particularly the weaker sections of the society.
India is a country of great diversity-with extremely rich as well as extremely poor people. Whilst on one side the rich society here can match the richest in the world, we do have poor people who cannot afford even one meal a day.
Considering that the Heart Surgery is one of the most expensive operations, how can the needy poor, some of who cannot afford even the bus fare to reach a big Hospital with Cardiac facilities, like Manipal, Narayan Hridyualaya etc., afford such costly operations.
To help the needy poor patients, who are not in a position to afford even the subsidized / bare minimum cost of surgery offered by the Cardiac Hospitals, a group of dedicated cardiac doctors and prominent citizens from different walks of life, have made efforts to set up a beneficiary Trust called “ Needy Heart Foundation”.
NHF was founded in 2001 and its Founding Trustees are:
Dr R C Srivyas (a very renowned heart surgeon – currently in USA); Dr Joseph Xavier (a Senior Heart Surgeon) ; Dr N S Devanand (a Senior Heart Surgeon); Mr Rajendra Kotaria ( an Industrialist), Mr S Ramaiah (a Chartered Accountant) and Mr O P Khanna (Former MD of three reputed Companies including a German Multinational based in India – currently Managing Trustee of NHF).
This Foundation has been established for the sole purpose of reaching out to the poor and weaker sections of society, irrespective of nationality, religion, color, cast or creed, who have not been able to reap the benefits of modern advances in medical care. Whilst most of the patients came from different parts of Karnataka, some of the patients came from as far as Bangladesh, West Bengal, MP, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh etc.
One of the major achievements of the Foundation has been to create complete transparency of the use of donations received. It ensures that every Rupee received by way of donations is
utilized effectively. The Foundation sends the patients only to those Hospitals which offer most economical Heart Surgery Packages in Bangalore. Further it has arrived at an understanding with certain Heart Surgeons who do not charge operation fees for the surgery of such poor patients. It has organized its book of accounts in such a way that any donor can have access to the utilization of their donations any time of the day or even through web / internet.
The Foundation has developed a website (www.needyheartfoundation.org) that is used to disseminate useful information for the benefit of the Patients, Donors, as well as the general public.
The trust has got approval under class 80G of the Income Tax Act 1956 for Tax exemption to donors.
Heart Surgery is one of the most complicated operations involving 4 to 6 hours or more incase of serious cases, by a team of 3 to 4 doctors. It involves comparatively large amount of money towards the medicines, disposables, valve replacements and implantation parts and support services.
The cost of Heart Surgery varies from City to city and country to country depending on the overheads. In Bangalore, the charges for a conventional Heart Bye-pass surgery normally ranges from Rs 2 lakhs depending on extent of damage to the Arteries and the heart Valves. In Chicago, USA, the cost of same surgery may vary from twenty thousand to fifty thousand dollars.
NHF was founded in 2001 and its Founding Trustees are:
Dr R C Srivyas (a very renowned heart surgeon – currently in USA); Dr Joseph Xavier (a Senior Heart Surgeon) ; Dr N S Devanand (a Senior Heart Surgeon); Mr Rajendra Kotaria ( an Industrialist), Mr S Ramaiah (a Chartered Accountant) and Mr O P Khanna (Former MD of three reputed Companies including a German Multinational based in India – currently Managing Trustee of NHF).
This Foundation has been established for the sole purpose of reaching out to the poor and weaker sections of society, irrespective of nationality, religion, color, cast or creed, who have not been able to reap the benefits of modern advances in medical care. Whilst most of the patients came from different parts of Karnataka, some of the patients came from as far as Bangladesh, West Bengal, MP, Maharashtra, Kerala, Tamilnadu, Andhra Pradesh etc.
One of the major achievements of the Foundation has been to create complete transparency of the use of donations received. It ensures that every Rupee received by way of donations is
utilized effectively. The Foundation sends the patients only to those Hospitals which offer most economical Heart Surgery Packages in Bangalore. Further it has arrived at an understanding with certain Heart Surgeons who do not charge operation fees for the surgery of such poor patients. It has organized its book of accounts in such a way that any donor can have access to the utilization of their donations any time of the day or even through web / internet.
The Foundation has developed a website (www.needyheartfoundation.org) that is used to disseminate useful information for the benefit of the Patients, Donors, as well as the general public.
The trust has got approval under class 80G of the Income Tax Act 1956 for Tax exemption to donors.
This performance would not have been possible without the generous support of benevolent Donors from different walks of life. The Support from donors has been consistently increasing as a result of strict control of funds utilized and the transparency that the Foundation has ensured throughout its working.
Some of the possible manners, in which the prospective Donors can support the above Cause, are;
Under this category NHF will contact you for the poor patients who cannot afford these expenses in full or in part indicating brief case history of the patient and the cost break up of the expenses involved. You may commit the extent of help your organization can render in each of these cases.
The Donors may commit certain number of surgeries on an annual basis fully or in part as described below.
Donors may contribute towards the corpus fund of the Needy Heart Foundation. Under the categories your contribution will be kept as fixed block with the trust using only the interest earned towards the operation cost.
India, the world’s largest democracy, has a very diverse population, geography, and climate. It is the world’s second most populous country having more than 1.21 billion population, and the world’s seventh largest country in area. As the population keeps increasing the government machinery for health care is unable to cope with the rapidly expanding demands placed on health care. The quality of medical care also varies considerably and it becomes a great challenge to provide adequate tertiary medical care to everyone.
Congenital heart disease is primarily seen in the newborn, infants and children. But in our country it’s not uncommon to see uncorrected congenital heart disease in adults. The burden of congenital heart disease in India is enormous because of the very high birth rate. The reported incidence is 8 – 10/ 1000 live births. Nearly a third to half of these are critical requiring intervention in the first year of life itself. Unfortunately majority of children born in India and afflicted with congenital heart disease do not get the necessary care leading to high morbidity and mortality. Going by a crude birth rate of 27 per 1000 population the total births per year in India is estimated at 28 million per year, if we apply an 8/1000 incidence of CHD, nearly 180,000 children are born per year with congenital heart disease per year. Of these 60 to 90000 suffer from critical CHD requiring early intervention. Approximately 10% of present infant mortality may be accounted by CHD alone. In this way a large no of children are added every year to the total pool of cases with CHD. We also have a large no of adult patients with CHD primarily because of lack of health awareness and inadequate health care facilities.
We may find it hard to imagine how much these children and their parents suffer. There are lots of socio economic factors that prevent them from reaching for better and timely treatment of these diseases. Realizing their desperate situation many parents choose to lose their beloved ones in front of their eyes, which is so heartbreaking.
The scientific investigations bring to light a number of factors that forces the innocent children to be victims of congenital heart disease
The prominent among them are :
Recent Health Data indicates that the incidence of heart disease is increasing rapidly that soon it may reach epidemic proportions. It has emerged as the number one killer in both urban and rural areas of the country.
Given below are some of the revelations in this context
Our experience has brought to light that many such cases drop in to the hospital and leave sadly accepting the fate and to depend on prayers. The sad aspect is that many have not even come to hospitals because of economic crisis and succumb to slow death. The fact is that many are innocent kids. The situation demands our intervention in whatever way possible to save these lives and bring smiles on the faces of the innocents.
