Date:18/08/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/08/18/stories/2006081823230300.htm

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Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Efforts to address cardiac cases in children set in motion

Dennis Marcus Mathew

Database of children with heart diseases being prepared

Children to be issued identity cards with disease and surgery particulars

New web application expected speed up treatment process

AWAITING HELP: Children suffering from heart ailments at Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences. PHOTO: SATISH. H

HYDERABAD: Two years after T. Sobhan of Karimnagar lost his life to a congenital heart disease (CHD) while participating in a rally on Tank Bund demanding free treatment to children like him, the State Government's efforts to address the issue are finally getting streamlined and more importantly, transparent.

With a fresh round of screening camps scheduled to begin at 44 centres in various districts in September, the Directorate of Medical Education (DME) along with the National Informatics Centre (NIC), have devised a web-based application that will prepare a database of children screened at the camps and issue them ID cards once they are referred to the respective district Government medical colleges.

Cards for children

Personal identification numbers and individual identity cards with details of the child, disease particulars and the mode of required treatment or surgery would also be issued to the children.

The web application, hosted on the NIC server, will have details updated from the camps and outpatient services in hospitals across the State apart from facilitating interaction between the camps, hospitals and the Central Child Cardiac Care Cell, M.V. Ramana, chief information officer, e-Governance at DME, told The Hindu .

The application, which will permanently record and track each patient based on the ID number, will also be helpful in follow-up of the children after surgeries. "It will help us extend the facility to more children, and the rightly deserving ones," Dr. Ramana said.

Screening camps

The entire episode began on August 7, 2004, when over 400 children with CHDs were admitted to various city hospitals after the Tank Bund rally. Some 7,000 more children were identified in subsequent screening camps across the State, of which over 5,000 required corrective surgery. So far, 4,643 have been operated upon, Rs.20 crores released and Rs.10.5 crores disbursed to corporate hospitals, as per Government statistics.

Still, there seems to be no end to the patients or the controversies over the process. This, according to health experts, was because nearly 20,000 babies with CHDs are born every year in Andhra Pradesh and because the monitoring system of the treatment was not up to the mark.

The new application is expected to set right the anomalies and speed up the entire process, Dr. Ramana added.