I strive to Save Lives, free of cost.
A few years ago, a beloved relative of mine died on route to the hospital, , which made me realise the importance of the role of transport services in effective healthcare like how developed countries to do for their citizens. Which gave me some food for thought and instantly, I made up my mind to start an aero medical service in India. As I began working on it I realised, an overnight change is not possible because, it’s easier to start something new, but it is difficult to correct people who are doing it in a wrong way. Initially, I did face a few setbacks and a lot of challenge, however I wanted to make this happen.
I had to take a baby steps to make sure I’m achieving my goal. The first step being, recognition and education of aeromedical service to masses, which was recognised by EMCON (Emergency Medicine Conference), held at Hyderabad, three years ago, where more than 300 delegates were present. The next steps included building out, guidelines and SOPs(Standard Operating Procedures) to be devised to make the system streamlined and operational.
ICATT has come a long way since then, before our establishment, 98% of the organ airlifts failed, our services have been 99% efficient in airlifting organs. To pull this off, we set standard operating procedures (SOPs) and have inspired many to follow the same. With immense satisfaction, I would like to say that we have sown the seeds for improvement of the system.
ICATT has set a lot of first milestones in India, such as, the first helicopter emergency medical drills, India’s first international ECMO, where the patient was shifted from Qatar, Doha and then to Chennai. It was quite challenging for us to bring a patient for an international ECMO transfer. The ECMO technique itself is quite daunting, imagine if the tube connecting the ECMO circuit gets dislodged, the entire body volume of blood will be on the floor and within seconds the patient would die. With all of this in mind, we successfully brought the patient successfully to Chennai.
Our services were one of the first in the history of disaster management in India, ICATT deployed the first ever flying ICU Helicopter for civilian use during the Kerala floods. We created a command sector at the Chengannur(the heart of flood hit Kerala), Kerala, a relief camp was set up within 24 hours of landing there. We used international operational procedures of working with the relief camps all over the state to make sure we were efficient in transferring the critically ill patients who needed our services the most to higher levels of medical care. With this we were successful in airlifting and saving the lives of the masses.
I also got an opportunity to airlift the Siddaganga Swami from Siddaganga Mutt to Chennai for treatment. He was airlifted to Chennai in record of 90 minutes, but the real challenge was his age. His near environment during the travel was made comfortable by keeping everything in saffron colour. He was accompanied by his beloved student.
In our endeavour to make Helicopter Emergency Medical Service (HEMS) a reality in India, ICATT has launched a year-long program called fellowship in aviation medicine. (It was launched by the union of honourable health minister of India, the administer of the state, Ashwin Kumar chaubay and the honourable minister.) The program has been set up to train our emergency doctors and paramedics in the field of HEMS which is the most advanced form of pre-hospital emergency medicine. In simple words, HEMS or pre-hospital emergency brings the hospital to the patient and starts the treatment withing the Golden hour period thereby saving time which inturn helps in saving many lives.This year-long program has been divided into four modules, each module for three months and a week of onsite learning for each module. This unique fellowship consists of advanced hard-core training for senior doctors who are trained for all kinds of emergency situations for example like perimortem caesarean section. We have faculty members from all over the world, the very best in-fact in their respective fields that are involved in training the doctors in this fellowship.
We have also setup a VIP wing for injured soldiers and rehabilitating them physically and psychologically. At present, the post-op care in India, especially to the traumatized patients from military personnel receive treatment from military hospital, but there is no rehabilitation centre set-up and no thought about crippled soldiers. We gave a serious thought to it and began working on it. I believe, in the importance to access to Healthcare and the right quality of Healthcare as a fundamental right foe to each and every one of us.
To imply this, I strive to treat people in the best possible manner, free of cost.
