Indian hospital offers free airline tickets
private hospitals, KIMS, has offered free air tickets to underprivileged patients in Zambia to be treated in India if a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) is signed with Government.
KIMS hospital director Bollineni Abhinay said the MoU should further lead to the establishment of a dialysis centre in Zambia.
Dr Abhinay said KIMS had 10 hospitals in India totaling 3, 200 bed capacity with separate units for bone marrow, heart and kidney transplants.
Dr Abhinay said the hospital had specialised skills in dialysis for patients suffering from acute and end stage kidney disease.
This came to light when Zambia’s High Commissioner to India Judith Kapijimpanga toured KIMS Hospital in Hyderabad, over 2000 kilometres from the Indian capital New Delhi.
“The hospital trains 180 doctors every year and Zambian doctors can benefit from the training for further skills transfer.
“Dialysis is also used as a bridge to kidney transplant for patients with end stage kidney disease,” Dr. Abhinay said.
And Ms Kapijimpanga said former UTH managing director Clarence Chiluba’s appointment as Counsellor Health at the Mission in India is commitment by Government to leverage on opportunities obtaining in the global health sector, India in particular, where most Zambians sought quality super-specialized health services.
“Zambia has 250 patients on chronic dialysis with about 700-800 acute kidney injury patients per year and these figures are grossly underestimated as most patients are lost before they are referred to dialysis units,” Ms. Kapijimpanga said.
She said the Zambian Government had put a premium on health as a catalyst for economic development to ensure that investment in health and other sectors was supported.
ONE of India’s leading
“Zambia’s health sector has made significant investment in infrastructure and equipment but requires capacity building,” Ms. Kapijimpanga said. Ms. Kapijimpanga said the Mission was further looking for a serious investor who could build a multi super-specialty hospital to service both the country and sub Saharan Africa.