The Holy Family Hospital and Research Centre is on a major expansion drive. After the recently opened Holy Family Pediatric Heart Centre, it plans to establish an exclusive endoscopy centre within the hospital premises.

The new centre, to be christened the Holy Family Gastroenterology and Endoscopy Centre is expected to begin operations early next year.

"The new centre which will be spread over a robust 500 plus square foot area will be made open to the masses by the start of next year", asserts Dr Sanjeev Khanna, Head - Department of Gastroenterology, at the hospital. According to him the new centre would be a full-fledged dedicated centre catering exclusively to diseases of the bowels.

Stating the need for the new centre Dr Khanna says, "With new disease patterns being detected, the number of patients coming to the hospital was visibly on the rise. Thus to cater to the growing demands of the patients, the hospital authorities decided to come up with a centre specifically for gastro-related cases."

Currently the hospital handles gastrointestinal related cases through the OPD, which sees an average of nearly 70 patients a month. And with the commissioning of the new centre they hope to treat close to 200 patients a month.

For now, the hospital has already managed to source equipment for the new centre. These include the latest and state-of-the-art video gastroscope, video colonoscope and an ERCP scope. Also, being a charitable hospital, it will be seen that each patient is charged economically for the various procedures. It would be a three-tier system where the patients would be categorized into three different groups, namely economical, moderate and luxury depending on the treatment modality opted.

The USP of the new centre, according to Dr Khanna, would be the reasonable charges offered to the patients for treatment. Another unique feature would be the broadband connection that the hospital promises to install in the centre. This would help doctors to display live procedures to audiences worldwide while attending seminars, gatherings etc.

As added facilities, the hospital plans to hand out to the patients colored copies of their various reports and also data on the history of the patient's disease, duly recorded in a floppy disk.