Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, the 600-bed  government dedicated heart care facility which is an autonomous medical  institution, is expanding its cardiology training with new courses in post graduation fellowships programmes.

The effort is to increase the number of qualified personnel to treat the growing number of patients coming for treatment.

“Being the largest single specialty hospital in the state, we need to offer courses to train the future generation of cardiology experts,” Dr CN Manjunath, director, Sri Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research told Pharmabiz at the sidelines of the first international conference on Geriology, Geriatric Medicine and Rehabilitation.

The rising number of ageing population needed the required medical attention as much as the young and middle aged patients. “Right now the 600-bed facility has a panel of 100 specialists but we need to look at training the fresh doctors passing out of medical colleges and looking for specializations in cardiology. This is where the need to introduce additional specializations for the Fellowship programmes in cardiac anesthesia, cardio electro physiology, invasive cardiology, intensive care medicine, non invasive cardiology and pediatric cardiology,” he added.

There is a substantial increase in the number of outpatients, inpatients and  procedures covering from echocardiogram to an open heart surgery have doubled since 2006. There have been an increasing number of cardiac diseases and together with the growing awareness makes them access the facility by both weaker and payable patient population, said Dr Manjunath.

For instance, in 2006, the outpatient flow was 1,34,947 and in 2011 it was 2,73,389. Similarly the inpatient inflow was 14,829 in 2006 and in 2011 it was 25,000 of which 15,000 were treated at subsidized cost.