President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam today inaugurated India's first indigenously developed cardiac catheterization lab at CARE Hospital, Hyderabad, amidst the announcement of a special package of 50 per cent discount on coronary tests like angiogram and angioplasty for the poor patients. They would have to pay only Rs 5,000 for an angiogram against Rs 10,000. Angioplasty would cost Rs 25,000 and bypass surgery Rs 85,000.

Lauding the hospital for the development of the first indigenous Cath Lab, the President stressed the need for mobile Cath Labs to reach the benefits angiogram and angioplasty to the rural poor. He said 70 per cent of the population lived in the villages, but a large number of hospitals were in the urban areas. He said the introduction of mobile clinics and Telemedicine, pioneered by CARE Hospital, had made significant contribution to healthcare in the districts. With the addition of mobile Cath Labs, there would be a revolution in rural healthcare, the President said.

Dr Kalam complimented the hospital for building up an enormous clinical data. The more the data, the more the opportunities for research, which in turn would help the development of new drugs. After inaugurating the lab, the President went round the various specialities and interacted with the patients.

Dr Soma Raju, Chairman and eminent cardiologist, who announced the special package for the poor on the occasion, said the hospital wanted to practise medicine as it was practiced in the west. It would be their endeavour to provide the best of medical care to the largest section of people at affordable cost. Taking advantage of the availability of world-class indigenous technology, the hospital has now embarked on making modern medicine more affordable and accessible.

He said the hospital which was started with 250 beds some five years ago had now 1,000 beds in the city. It had also expanded from a single speciality to a multi-speciality hospital with a dozen hospitals in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. The hospital was also linked with half-a- dozen district hospitals with the Telemedicine facility. It would have a wide network in the north-east with the commissioning of a Telemedicine facility in Tripura soon. The Government of Tripura had entrusted the responsibility of running its newly built Super Speciality Hospital at Agartala to CARE Foundation.

Prof Arun Tewari, CEO of the Hospital and the brain behind the Cath Lab, said it would cost less than one-third of the cost of an imported machine. Mumbai-based Alpha X-Ray Technologies, Siemens and several Defence R&D laboratories pooled their expertise to design and integrate 1k x 1k resolution digital Cath Lab, Prof Tiwari said.

The indigenous Cath Lab will be put to limited series production. A 10-Cath Lab Telemedicine network is already on cards linking leading district hospitals across the country.

CARE Hospital has the unique distinction of being owned and managed by the leading physicians who had participated in bringing modern medicine to the city. Dr B Soma Raju performed India's first Balloon Angioplasty in 1985 and Dr D Prasad Rao, Managing Director, had carried out the first coronary bypass surgery in AP in 1993. When Dr A P J Abdul Kalam, as the scientific advisor to the Defence Minister, took the historic decision of opening up Defence Labs to develop affordable medical products as defence technology spin-offs, Dr Soma Raju took the lead from the medical side. Very extensive efforts were made across multiple organizations and many useful products were developed, the crowning glory being the Kalam-Raju stent. The low-cost stent resulted crash in the stent market and today international brands of stents are sold cheapest in India.

Interestingly, one patient, Hamant Kumar, 45, from Chttisgarh, with two Kalam-Raju stents implanted in his body, was brought to the dais to garland the President.