‘A PEOPLE PERSON':LEADING THE THOUSANDS WITH EXEMPLARY WORK IN HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT

DR SHANTHI BANSAL

A highly motivated and entrepreneurial healthcare leader with clinical body of work in anaesthesiology, cardiac sciences, oncology and critical care. She has led many Greenfield and Brownfield hospitals to financial health. Her focus has been team building and process driven organisation.

Childhood dream and first step towards the career

Yes, every child has a dream and I wanted to be an engineer as I was good with the studies but my parents wanted me to a part of the bigger picture and contribute to society. So, I was not allowed to give the entrance for engineering and got into the medical field and took specialisation in anaesthesiology which is a critical care subject back in 1990. I became a cardiac anaesthesiologist and critical care specialist closely working within emergency departments.

Early stages of the career and turning point

I did my post-graduation from Madhya Pradesh and Senior Resident ship from Delhi from where I was appointed as Assistant Professor at the National Institute of Health and Family Welfare. I worked with the organisation for almost a year and decided that my craft and skills could be better utilised for the betterment of society.

From there I shifted to Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute and worked there for more than three years. Later I moved to cardiac anaesthesiologist from where I was picked by Yogesh Mehta then CEO of Apollo hospital, at that time I have also associated

Dr. Ganesh Mani for some time and managed his centres in Saroj Hospital, Jaipur Golden Hospital, Moolchand hospital, and Delhi heart and lung institute for more than 12 years.

Later on, I moved to Rockland Hospital where I took charge of administrations looking after the quality, BLS and ALS training, ethics committee, and more. Intense on-ground clinical experience, being part of critical phases of the hospital, and being involved in the quality journey has helped me to move to NABH as well.

Training has always been an important part of my work; it is important to make people aware of what they are doing and what is quality maintenance.

So, I would say that management was the turning point of my career.

Challenges

I acquired my MBA in healthcare and also did my PGD in healthcare and I’m also pursuing a course in health informatics and analytics from George Washington University USA. It is very important to have clinical experience while being a part of management in a hospital, it adds experience and value to the post, it also helps in having a better understanding of ground challenges. I took a call, I had to get into the management full-fledged and decided to change from my clinical career. I became the VP of Operation at CK Birla Hospital.

I consider myself to be a people person, every decision taken in a hospital should be patient-centric. We have to focus on how a decision affects the patients and if it is good for the patients then it is good for the hospital.

One major challenge that we face in a hospital is how healthcare is labour intensive, we have ward boy, sweeper, patient care attendant, senior doctors and consultants, and many more in the hierarchy, it is a challenging task to handle the complete radius of working system and support each one of them. Whenever I was in the management the organization has hit their highest revenue and has built the image and all of this could happen only because of the team.

Fighting the deadly COVID wave

Currently, I’m working as CEO at Haria L G Rotary Hospital, I joined the organisation when India reported its first COVID-19 case. Our main aim was to build the infrastructure for the same. During March we saw a sudden dip in the patients coming to the hospital and there were only covid patients visiting. We took the initiative and converted the college nearby into a covid care centre. We had the good infrastructure to support the pandemic, we provided beds and oxygen, and ventilators to the patients. I’m proud to say that we have saved many lives and have provided the best treatment. Even during the hard time, we were able to give regular salaries to the staff and incentives for working during covid.

Even when the government started the vaccination drive people were scared to take the vaccination, so I took the initiative and came forward to take the vaccine first. I believe to lead by example and now my whole team is safe and vaccinated.

Now we have an oxygen plant in our hospital, converting nitrogen into oxygen. We were supported by the local industries for setting up the plant. I’m glad to share that we never had a single day without oxygen, and it was only possible with the help of Rotary and local politicians in Vapi.

The mortality rate was very less and our staff has put their best efforts to run this organisation with the utmost safety in these challenging times.