THE LADAKH HEART FOUNDATION
A Proposal for Procuring and Installing
The Medical Equipment
That Will Complete and Make Operational
The Ladakh Heart Foundation Hospital
Lama Chogyal, President
Sampth Kumar, M.D.
Henry M. Vyner, M.D.
I. The Basic Problem: Health Care in Ladakh
Ladakh is an isolated mountainous land on the western edge of the Tibetan Plateau. Until the middle of the 19th century, it was an independent Tibetan Buddhist kingdom, but since that time it has been part of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Modernization did not even begin to reach Ladakh until the middle of 1970’s. There were no roads, no electricity, no indoor plumbing and no allopathic hospitals or clinics. When Nehru flew into Ladakh to see this new region of his new country, he rode by horseback from the airfield at which he landed to the capital. Today, much of Ladakh still exists in this same state. Two slim mountainous roads connect Ladakh to the rest of modern India, and both of them are closed by snow for eight months of the year.
Leh, the capital of Ladakh, now has two hospitals – neither of which has a modern operating room, and a small corps of dedicated physicians – most of whom are general practitioners.
When a person has a heart problem in Ladakh, more often than not it goes undiagnosed – either because the patient has no access to a physician, or because the necessary diagnostic expertise and/or diagnostic equipment are not available. Traditionally, the only remedy available to a Ladakhi heart patient was to go to
New Dehli to get diagnosis and treatment, if they were lucky enough to have the resources and health to do so.
The Ladakh Heart Foundation was created, in 1997, to address and resolve these problems. For years, the Foundation has been providing the best possible medical care its resources would allow to Ladakhi heart patients. The Foundation is now in the midst of building a hospital with two operating theaters that will specialize in and vastly improve its ability to diagnose and treat heart disease.
The building in which the hospital will be housed is nearing completion. This proposal is a request for funding to support the purchase and installation of the medical equipment that will make the Ladakh Heart Foundation Hospital operational and give it the ability to give its patients state of the art diagnosis and treatment for cardiovascular disease. This will include the equipment that will be used to create two operating theatres in which open heart surgery can and will be performed.
II. The Overall Goals of the Ladakh Heart Foundation
- Provide affordable state of the art medical care for all Ladakh citizens who have cardiovascular disease.
- We are particularly interested in providing surgical repair for children who have congenital heart diseases (CHD).
- Provide free state of the art medical care for all Ladakhi citizens who have cardiovascular disease who can not afford treatment.
- Become a referral hospital for Indian citizens living in adjacent states who have cardiovascular disease.
- Provide health education for the inhabitants of Ladakh that will enable them to prevent cardiovascular disease and seek treatment when it is appropriate to do so.
- Health education would focus, primarily, on the issues of preventing rheumatic heart disease, hypertension and coronary artery disease. It will also focus on the early detection of congenital heart disease.
- Health education will be provided at both the LHF campus in Leh, and by means of an outreach program that is already active and going to many of the remote villages of Ladakh.
Provide general medical care for non-cardiac illness as time, space and resources permit.
- Implement research projects, as the need arises, to provide ourselves with the information we need to improve our ability to prevent and treat cardiovascular illness.
III. Our Immediate Objective
- Complete the construction of the Ladakh Heart Foundation Hospital and bring it into full operation by the end of 2007. This will include the furbishing of two complete operation theatres capable of doing open heart surgery, the purchase and installation of a complete range of diagnostic equipment and the creation of an intensive care unit (ICU).
IV. The History of the Ladakh Heart Foundation
The work of the Ladakh Heart Foundation began serendipitously in 1997 when Lama Chogyal, a monk and the president of the LHF, was stuck in New Dehli while trying to obtain a visa to go to England. He decided to make constructive use of his time by visiting Ladakhi patients who were in Dehli hospitals. This experience taught Lama Chogyal two basic things: (a) many Ladakhi people have preventable heart disease and (b) that it was a jarring and overwhelmingly expensive experience for Ladakhi people to come to Dehli and stumble their way through what was basically a foreign country trying to find medical care for their illnesses.
Lama Chogyal resolved to do something. His first move was to consult with Ladakhi physicians to find out what could be done. He decided that a useful first thing to do would be to purchase large amounts of penicillin and distribute it to villages, along with proper education about rheumatic heart disease (RHD) and strep throat, so that the then prevalent RHD could be prevented by the simple measures of diagnosing and treating strep throat. Since that time, new cases of RHD have almost disappeared from Ladakh.
Next came an outreach health care program to deliver health care to remote villages. Lama Chogyal found the money to purchase a vehicle and equipment, organized the physicians and the program took off and is still running to this day.
Then the idea arose to bring cardiologists and heart surgeons to Ladakh from the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Dehli – one of India’s premiere medical institutions. Lama Chogyal picked up the phone and for seven years now, AIIMS’s physicians and surgeons have been providing quality medical care to heart patients from all over Ladakh at week long summer clinics in Leh. An average of 300 patients have been seen every summer in these clinics.
Finally, the New Dehli physicians asked Lama Chogyal to construct a hospital here in Leh that would specialize in providing comprehensive cardiac care. Dr. Samphat Kumar, Professor of Cardio-Thoracic Surgery at AIIMS, offered to move to Leh and work full time for the LHF hospital. The government of Ladakh contributed a piece of land. The Dalai Lama, who has been a patron from the very beginning, as well as many others, contributed significant amounts of money, and three years ago, construction began.
At this point in time, the hospital building is complete, and funds have been obtained to both finish the electrical and plumbing infrastructure of the building and to purchase furniture. This work is ongoing as we write.
All that remains to be done is to purchase and install the necessary medical equipment. This proposal is a request for funds to purchase and install that equipment.
V. An Inventory of the Equipment and Instruments Presently Needed By the Ladakh Heart Foundation Hospital
The equipment and instruments that we need to begin operation fall into two broad categories: diagnostic instruments and the equipment needed to furbish two operating theatres and one intensive care unit. We will list them by category.
DIAGNOSTIC EQUIPMENT
1. Cardiac Catheterization and Angiography Laboratory … $330,000
2. Echocardiography Machine ……………………………… $220,000
3. Electrocardiograph Machines (6) ………………………… $ 1,350
4. Clinical Pathology Laboratory ……………………………. $165,000
SURGICAL EQUIPMENT
1. Two Operating Theatres …………………………………. $325,000
2. One Intensive Care Unit (8 beds) ………………………. $365,000
3. Heart Lung Machine ……………………………………… $110,000
4. ETO Sterilizer …………………………………………….. $ 37,800
5. Infusion Pumps …………………………………………… $ 17,600
6. Blood Gas Machine ………………………………………. $ 13,200
7. Blood Bank ……………………………………………….. $ 11,000
8. Defibrillator (12) ……………………………………………. $ 96,000
9. Ventilator (8) ……………………………………………… $150,000
10. Diesel Generator …………………………………………. $ 8,900
Architect’s Rendering of the Ladakh Heart Foundation Campus
Appendix: Physicians and Surgeons
Working with the Ladakh Heart Foundation
I. AIIMS Physicians
Dr. Sampth Kumar, Professor of CardioThoracic Surgery, AIIMS
Dr. Sandeep Mishra, Assistant Professor of Cardiology, AIIMS
Dr. M.V. Padma, Professor of Neurology, AIIMS
II. LADAKHI PHYSICIANS
Dr. Tsering Norbu, Internist
Dr. Tsering Norbu, Surgeon
Dr. Tsering Lhadol, Gynecologist
Dr. Tashi Namgyl, ENT
Dr. P.T. Angchuk
Dr. Norbu Tsering, General Practitioner
Construction of the hospital complex
The idea of hospital complex of Ladakh Heart Foundation is to create a facility in Leh itself where patients, particularly poor patients can undergo cost-prohibitive cardiac surgery in their home district at much less and affordable cost. Many poor patients meet premature death as they can't afford to go to places like Delhi, Chandigarh etc for surgery. Besides the cost of prosthetic valves (one valve costing 1800 US dollars), the to and fro airfare, boarding and lodging charges for a minimum of 3-4 weeks in Delhi is unaffordable for most of the patients. Cardio-thoracic surgeon and cardiologist of AIIMS New Delhi and other referral hospitals are pleased to visit Ladakh with their team to perform surgery here in Leh. To create a well equipped hospital for the benefit of poor patients of this district is the dream which Ladakh Heart Foundation wants to realize.
About the project
The site lies on the connecting road to Kargil. The site is located in the lower valley in the Agling area of Leh.
The project proposes to build a fully independent and self-sufficient medical facility in the field of heart and other related diseases mainly catering to the local community. The center would include a whole range of facilities, the details of which are given below:
The project shall be built in four phases:
Phase-I: - This would
include a hospital building and a guest house.
Phase-II: - This would include
an OPD block and an administrative block.
Phase-III: - A multi-purpose
hall and a Meditation center would be built
during this phase.
Phase-IV: - This would include
the residential part of the complex.
About the design
The design of the entire site is based on the climatic factor of the region and more importantly working economics of the building. The intention is also to make the buildings maintenance free and something that is not alien to the culture of the indigenous Ladakhis.
The entire scheme will be constructed in stone, timber and other locally available materials that shall blend with the existing fabric of the region and is designed with a modern approach that shall add to giving the complex a distinctive architectural style and a critical regional understanding of the built vocabulary and also the area.
The south and west facing walls shall be made on a cavity system so that energy can be trapped in the cavity and climatic effect on the building can be regulated and controlled to ensure a micro climate within the complex and within the building.
The construction method has been made simple so that local workers can learn them fast and use them in the region effectively.
HOW CAN YOU HELP?
Your compassion and support will make a great difference to the lives of the people of Ladakh. Here’s how you can help:
Become a supporter of
the Ladakh Heart Foundation by contributing whatever you can.
We shall be grateful for any contribution that you can give no matter
how small or large. Suggestions would be most welcome.
Your queries could be sent to:
Ladakh Heart Foundation
Dambuchan Agling
P.O. Box No. 150
Leh- 194101
Ladakh, India
Email:ladakhheartfoundation@yahoo.co.in
Cthupstan@yahoo.com
Our Bank A/C No. 0105008002
State Bank of India
Swift code SBININBB280
Leh Code No. – 1365
Download the Proposed estimate for construction of hospital complex by clicking here
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