PMR at St. John's Medical College & Hospital
History of the department
The Governing Board of St. John's Medical College & Hospital
created the PMR Department at St. John's in April 1998 following an
internal need assessment. The creation of the PMR Department was also
partly in response to an urgent external request by the Medical Council
of India to implement an earlier Government order to start a PMR
Department in every Medical College . At the time the PMR Department
came into existence at St. John's Hospital, there were only 14 out of
140 medical colleges which had a PMR department.
During its short existence over the past 3 years, the PMR department
of St. John's can pride itself of a number of successes including the
fact that manypatients with no power in their legs were walking. Thus the
department mission was borne:
Paraplegics are Walking,
Amputees will Run
Key statistics for the department
Patients and treatments
The current PMR department is organised to cater 3
different types of patients:
|
Type of patients |
Number of patients/ treatments |
|
PMR in-patients |
150 patients/year |
|
PMR out-patients |
1500 patients/ year |
|
Patients from other St. John's departments requiring Physiotherapy
and Occupational Therapy |
40,000 treatments/ year
(5,000 patients) |
The average duration of stay for a PMR inpatient is 50 days.
The causes for hospitalisation are distributed as follows
:
|
Cause for hospitlisation
|
Percentage of patients
|
|
Spinal Cord Injury (SCI)
|
50%
|
|
Cerebral Palsy
|
15%
|
|
Stroke
|
10%
|
|
Polio
|
5%
|
|
Other
|
20%
|
|
Total
|
100%
|
Staff
Currently the PMR team is made up as follows:
3 Doctors
6 Physiotherapists + 5 Trainees
3 Occupational therapists
4 Staff nurses
1 Social worker
4 Outpatient nursing staff
Bed Capacity
20 common beds (free of charge)
Private beds - as required and available
Surgeries
About 45 surgeries are carried out per year. Though small in absolute
numbers, in a number of patients, about 2 to 8 surgical procedures are
performed. The reason for performing multiple surgeries is two-fold:
1. To reduce costs to the patient
2. To hasten the rehabilitation process
Social aspects
In line with St. John's general humanitarian mission, the PMR
department has made special efforts to make its services accessible for
the poor. This is especially important since poor people (e.g. coolie
workers, agricultural workers and construction workers) are more likely
to meet with disabling accidents than the general population. The
department meets the cost of subsidised care to poorer patients in the
common ward by charging higher amounts for richer patients in the
private ward. Over the fiscal year 2000 -2001 80% of the patients were
in the common ward and 20%was in the private ward.
Common ward patients are supported in the following ways:
Where the hospital's means are insufficient to completely meet the
patient's financial needs, help is given by the social worker to apply
for aids from various outside agencies. For instance, the social worker
may apply for subsidy to buy a wheelchair for a patient.
Besides this financial support, St. John's does much more to cater to
the needs of poorer patients. Much emphasis is being put on using the
simplest methods to train the patients, so that they will be able to
continue the training in their home situations. For instance, the
patients get to use cycle tubes to strengthen their arm muscles instead
of the much more expensive surgical tubings common in the West. Also, a
special emphasis is being put on teaching the patient how to cope with
the actual situation at his home. This means, for instance, teaching a
patient who lives in the slums to walk with the aid of callipers and
crutches on a very uneven terrain.
|
