Afirst of its kind in India, the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education andResearch (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has launched an amputee clinic, Director JagatRam said on Tuesday.
Formallyinaugurated on Monday, the clinic has been set up to improve amputation patientcare by providing collection of services under one roof and with significantcoordination.
Laudingthe initiative, the Director said its basic intent is to unify all diversesections in the hospital with some upgradations where needed, to provide appropriatemanagement to amputees to guide them in their path to rehabilitation insociety.
Healso ensured that some modalities would be worked out under the initiative toextend financial support for the medical as well as rehabilitation of thedeserving and destitute amputees.
OrthopaedicsDepartment Head, M.S. Dhillon, who spearheaded the initiative, said: "Thisis the first-of-its-kind clinic in the country and no such clinic existselsewhere. Over the last few years, it has been our endeavour to providecomprehensive care to post-trauma amputees, with various aspects ofmultidisciplinary care.
"Wehave combined all the specialities that help in patient care and rehab underone roof, we have now formalized this as PGI amputee clinic comprisingspecialists from various departments that is, orthopaedics, PMR (physical andmedical rehabilitation), occupational physiotherapy, prosthetists,psychologists and nursing departments, who had already been providing care butas individual entities."
Itis a concept to provide holistic care to patients with amputation, Dhillonadded. Itinvolves evaluation, resuscitation and treatment after the initial event(usually trauma), followed by appropriate planning and surgical interventions.
"Wewill also run amputee schools on the basis of the successful knee school beingrun at PGI where we propose to get amputees together to interact with eachother and get collective counselling and understand issues faced by othersimilar cases," Dhillon said.