The 200-bed Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital plans to conduct free surgery camps on daily basis right through the year. For this, the hospital has opened a free camp centre in within the complex. A surgical and medical screening camp is being organised at no cost to the patient between January 12 and 14, 2003 in general medicine, pulmonary medicine, paediatrics, plastic surgery, vascular surgery, orthopaedics and gynaecology.
There will be around 122 consultants conducting the procedures all at free of cost. The hospital expects around 1,000 patients during the 3-day screening and the surgeries will be performed between January and February at the hospital.
In order to ensure that only the genuine poor and needy are benefited out of the free camps, it will ensure that the patients should produce 'the below the poverty line card' that is the yellow or green ration card for registration at the camp.
Barely five months since the setting up of the free camp centre, several free diagnosis and surgeries have been performed for osteoarthritis, orthopaedics, polio corrective operations, informs Dr. Kishore Murthy, chief executive officer, Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Hospital.
At the 5-day camp held earlier, on an average 300 patients a day were screened for various disorders and a total of 1,600 patients were given treatment. Out of these 294 cases were for surgeries in different specialities like general surgery, orthopaedics, plastic surgery, ENT, Obstetrics and Gynaecology, Ophthalmology, Urology, vascular surgery, neurology and thoracic surgery. All the patients were given medicines free of cost.
Another feature of the camp is a health awareness drive on diabetic foot care and complications, vascular surgery benefits, prevention of osteoarthritis, nutrition and dietetics.
Lions Club of Bangalore, Rotary Clubs, Friends Welfare Organisation (FWO), Bangalore, Karnataka Marwari Youth Federation, Bangalore and Haemophilia Society have supported the camps regularly.
The hospital, which is located in the heart of the city, was set up in 1975 under the aegis of the Bhagwan Mahaveer Jain Trust.