-By A Staff Reporter
Kathmandu- Heart disease is a growing public health problem in both the developed and developing countries. Nepal like other countries in the subcontinent experiences fairly high incidences of cardiac disorders. Statistics reveal that almost ten percent of the population in Nepal face the threat of cardiac problems. Studies have showed that 50 per cent of deaths in the next five years will be due to heart diseases.
As there were no proper heart care centers in Nepali, there was no other way than to go to abroad for the heart patients. Since cardiac ailments require a state-of-the-art equipment and highly trained medical as well as paramedical personnel, proper treatment was available only in developed countries. Obviously, such treatment also cost them a lot.
Only a few Nepalese can afford to have such expensive treatment abroad. Many heart patients in Nepal have died in the past due to this very reason. But, in the recent past, the emergence of a fine institution in Nepal has greatly benefitted the people here.
In order to make available the treatments and facilities in our own country, Nepal’s premier industrial house the Chaudhary Group joined hands with Dr. Naresh Trehan, Executive Director of Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center, New Delhi a couple of years back. Their association gave birth to the Norvic-Escorts Health Care and Research Center in April 1998 which is equipped with latest equipments and trained personnel to treat cardiac cases.
Norvic is also planning to expand its services by providing highly sophisticated treatment through world renowned experts. “By next year, Norvic Health Care Center will match the standard of any institution in South East Asia,” informed Dr. Trehan, who visited Kathmandu as the Guest of Honor for an intensive three-day programme on “Cardiology at the Dawn of Millennium” that was held from November 26 to 28, 1999.
Amidst a programme, Dr. Trehan and Lunkaran Das Chaudhary, chairman of Chaudhary Group, jointly laid the foundation stone for Super Speciality Cardiac Center with high-tech Cath-lab and Cardiac Surgery Operation Theater at the premises of Norvic’s at Thapathali.
Addressing a press conference organized on the occasion, Basant K. Chaudhary, President and Managing Director of Norvic, informed that the Rs. 70-million heart care project will be completed by mid 2000. “We are on a mission to bring speciality cardiac care closer to the Nepalese people,” Chaudhary added.
Speaking on the same occasion, Dr. Trehan expressed gratitude for being approached by the Chaudhary Group for the noble cause of establishing a high-tech heart care center in Nepal. When Dr. Trehan was practicing heart care in New York, then Indian prime minister Indira Gandhi and noted Indian industrialist H. P. Nanda of Escorts Group requested him to establish a high-tech, state-of-the-art heart institute in India. In order to fulfill their desire and make available the much needed heart care facilities in their own country, Dr. Trehan initiated the mission in 1982.
During the three-day programme, the Norvic Health Care Center also organized Heart Camps, live demonstration of Balloon Mitral Valvuloplasty (BMV) and Trans Esophageal Echocardiogram (TEE) procedures, held interaction with heart patients, lectures on public awareness and a symposium on “Cardiac Surgery and Cardiology at the Dawn of the New Millennium.”
The symposium held on November 27 was inaugurated by Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai. On the occasion Prime Minister Bhattarai also released a book on “Heart Failure” compiled by Dr. Trehan and his colleague Dr. R. R. Kasliwal, Senior Consultant Cardiologist at Escorts Heart Institute. Dr. Trehan and Dr. Kasliwal along with a team of cardiologists have been regularly visiting Kathmandu to take care of Nepalese heart patients.