Shushruha, a one-of-its-kind mini super-specialty hospital that has been running on a co-operative basis for around 50 years, is expanding its services with a new facility at Vikhroli. The foundation stone for the new facility was laid by Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis earlier this week. Abhijit Mulye spoke to Shushrusha Chairman Dr N S Laud to understand the strengths of this unique institution. Excerpts.
Sir, first tell us about the Shurusha hospital.
Shushrusha Citizens’ Co-operative Hospital was set up about 50 years ago in Mumbai by late Dr. V S Ranadive. There are doctors’ co-operatives elsewhere. However, Shushrusha is not a doctor’s co-operative. It is a hospital built through the organised efforts of citizens and equipped by them through their own funds, managed professionally on a competent basis. This is the true essence of the co-operative movement in providing medical care.
Initially, this co-operative clinical care hospital at Dadar had 80 beds and assets worth Rs 28.71 lakh. The membership was less than 1,500. In the last 50 years, the movement has grown in strength by the dedicated work of specialists, the management of the co-operative society, the staff and workers. As of today, the hospital can pride itself in having a six-storey building with a bed capacity of 130 beds and an ICU with a capacity of 17 beds. The fixed assets are approximately Rs 50 crore and have thus grown substantially. The hospital invests Rs 2.5 million annually to equip itself with modern state-of-the-art technology.
What exactly is the concept? What is meant by a co-operative hospital?
Ours is not a doctors’ co-operative, but a citizens’ cooperative. So, like in any other co-operative, every member puts in a certain amount while becoming the member and reaps the benefits of it for a lifetime.
The hospital caters to the health and medical care of all citizens. However, since it is established and run by the members through elected representatives, it offers concession to members of up to 50% in all the services and free medical check-up for senior citizens. Subsidy is also available to the spouse and up to two children and members enjoy fixed rates for operations of all specialties. All these surgeries are at an affordable cost for middle and lower income families.
Healthcare today is at a crossroads. It is proving to be beyond the reach of the common man, especially low and middle income groups. It is estimated that around 10 per cent to 12 per cent of the family income needs to be spent on taking care of emergency healthcare needs and age-old problems. Emergency and specialty care is well beyond the reach of an average citizen. The awareness to create financial capability is shockingly lacking.
At Shushrusha, our principle is ‘healthcare is a right’ and we strive to provide accessible, available on demand, affordable and, most importantly, accountable health care.
What are the healthcare services provided at this facility?
It possesses the latest diagnostic facilities, such as imaging equipment, e.g. ultrasound with doppler. In addition to this, we have ventilators for critical care, operating microscopes, a fully equipped dialysis unit, blood gas analysers, cardiac monitoring equipment, EEG/EMG etc. In short, we can call it a mini super-specialty hospital.
With all kinds of clinical and surgical procedures available as well, surgical treatment for cancer, trauma and reconstructive surgeries, too, are done here. We also carry out surgery for sports injuries, joint replacement surgeries and micro-surgeries of limb re-implants. The hospital also provides the community service by conducting free camps in the fields of ophthalmology, cardiology, skin, pediatric, cancer detection etc, and specialised camps for deaf, mute and mentally challenged people.
Encouraged by this successful experiment at Dadar, Mumbai, the management has decided to extend this experiment to one of the busy suburbs of Mumbai – Vikhroli. We are trying to replicate this on the same basis.
What makes you feel that this model of healthcare is the only viable healthcare model?
At the foundation stone ceremony, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis spoke about Obama’s speeches at the election rally. If you have followed the healthcare policy proposed by Obama, it emphasises on the people’s participation. The whole world has now started recognising the power of people’s participation. Dr Randive, the founder of Shushrusha, was a visionary who recognised this 50 years ago. The UK model of healthcare, where the government takes care of everything, simply can’t work in India because of the size of the population. In such a situation, if affordable healthcare is a problem, people should understand that the solution lies with themselves and no one else. Even the element of accountability, which is very painfully missing from both government and private healthcare institutions, can be taken care of in the Shushrusha type of healthcare model. Hence, I feel this is the way ahead.
What is your vision about the development of the hospital?
Shushrusha is registered with all existing TPAs and insurance companies. We are also in the process of obtaining our own ISO certification. This way, we can enter into the field of medical tourism as well. We have received generous donations from philanthropic institutions like Suman Ramesh Tulsiani Charitable Trust for developing our facility at Vikroli. This came as a great encouragement for us. This has enabled us to plan for complete cardiac care services with coronary angiography, interventional cardiology and cardiac surgery, etc. Similarly we are also planning to cover all aspects of critical care. This comprehensive medical care with diagnosis, treatment and post treatment recovery would enable us to attract patients from abroad. This is a new horizon and the hospital proposes to march into this foray. Shushrusha is also willing to extend in-patient and domiciliary cover and treatment to elderly parents of Indians abroad.
