Seven months after the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Health Department and the Senior Joint Replacement and Arthroscopy surgeon from Apollo Hospitals, Dr. Madan Mohan Reddy, a total of 10 patients have undergone surgery in the Union Territory.
According to the scheme, a team from Apollo under the aegis of Dr. Madan Mohan would be provided the cost of the implant as well as free infrastructure and they would assess the patients and perform knee replacement surgeries.
These surgeries would be free of cost for the patients. The cost per surgery to the government would be only the cost of the implants, which is Rs. 1 lakh and the doctors attached to the Government Hospitals would provide care for the patients. Currently, there is a waiting time of around two months to receive the knee transplants. On Saturday alone he completed two knee replacements, Dr. Madan Mohan told The Hindu .
Soon, with Government approval, he would bring in the ‘Attune’ technology here as well.
Currently, this technology was only available at Apollo Hospitals, but through these new implants, patients would be able to walk on the same day of the operation itself, he said.
On an average, one in four patients are not completely satisfied with regular knee implants, and so this technology could be the solution since these implants are patient specific.
The new implants will also last for around 30 years, as opposed to 10 years with a regular implant.
The cost of these implants will be around Rs. 35,000 more than the regular implants used, he said.
