Tag: mumbai

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Trends

Mumbai needs more dialysis machines

Several kidney patients in Mumbai report renal failure that requires dialysis, and their numbers are going up – requiring more dialysis machines.
by Dr Jyotsna Zope | Senior Consultant Nephrologist, Mukta Kidney Dialysis Centre

Mumbai is witnessing a long list of kidney patients waiting for treatment. With the rise in renal failure cases, the number of patients requiring dialysis has increased by many folds in hospitals across the city. As a result, despite many having multiple dialysis machines, the patients are forced to wait, said Neprologists.

Dialysis is an important component to treat the patient in case of End Stage Kidney Failure (ESRD). The kidneys help in maintaining the body’s cleanliness on the inside. Dialysis is suggested when the kidney fails to do its job. It is an artificial means to clean our blood and in turn our body. ESRD is a last stage of kidney failure. After this stage, if a person wants to clean the body, dialysis or transplant is often recommended. In India, dialysis is offered at an affordable cost, thereby trying to meet the requirements of people suffering from ESRD.

The Haemodialysis Units are, till date, mainly located in major cities. Mumbai and its surrounding areas are catering to the huge demand with almost 210 centers of various sizes from one or two dialysis stations to 25 dialysis stations. Some of the dialysis units are part of the hospitals while others are just stand-alone units catering to the maintenance dialysis Patients. These entire units together have almost 2,000 haemodialysis machines working full-time. They are taking care of approximately 22,000 ESRD patients.

Doctors attribute this surge in cases of renal failure mainly to an increase in diabetes and hypertension.Figures show that almost 30 per cent of diabetic patients develop diabetic kidney disease. And with an exponential increase in the number of diabetics in India, the number of patients suffering from diabetic kidney disease is set to rise high. According to the International Diabetes Federation, one in 10,000 of the world’s population will have diabetes by 2035. Estimates show that people living with diabetes will surge from 382 million to 592 million by 2035.

There is not just the need for haemodialysis machines, but there is also the need to maintain the quality of dialysis, which is equally important as there are higher chances of catching infection from various sources. The leaders in this field are very eager to give quality care to all their patients, but they face mountainous difficulties. They find it difficult to maintain the quality standards, amounting to paucity of funds. There is a lot that needs to be done to give long fruitful life to our dialysis patients. People need to understand that prevention is better than cure, so get yourself properly screened for lifestyle diseases, including diabetes and hypertension to prevent kidney failure in the later stage.

(Pictures courtesy www.ghrc-abu.com. Image used for representational purpose only) 

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Do

Aarey says ‘Bachao!’

An RJ with Radio City writes about her station’s ongoing campaign to save Mumbai’s prized green lung – Aarey colony.
Archana Paniaby Archana Pania

Mumbai has two sacrosanct areas that are green covers of the city, Mahim Nature Park and Sanjay Gandhi National Park. The third could have would have been Äarey Forest, but too many have settled in, tried to make it a residential area, while forest retreat hotels have been built therein and very little has been done to maintain the sanctity of the park.

Since its high connectivity to the western suburbs and Powai, the idea of making it pivotal to the real estate agents who look for lands like vultures look for rodents, Aarey is being eyed as the next hub for commercial office space generation, a large residential base and the Metro Phase III shed to be built into!

At the Radio City morning show ‘Kasa kai Mumbai’, we are huge supporters of progress in Mumbai and we want the city to converted into a world class city – but not at the cost of losing the green lungs of the city! “If Aarey colony’s 2,000+ trees are cut, I am going to leave Mumbai!” said one of our listeners! Hence, if we don’t raise our voices in support of  the trees now, we shall lose the most bio-diverse green cover Mumbai has.

Jackie Shroff, singer Shaan, Dia Mirza and many eminent personalities are all for green cover in Mumbai, and it’s time we show respect to nature, as opposed to ‘development’ in the name of progress and take the green cover away. Singer, lyricist, actor, composer Piyush Misra said “A sign of a progressive city is their parks…closer to home, there is Chandigarh or Hyde Park in London…”

Yes, we lost parts of Mulund and the Powai forest to builders, but the least we can do is save whatever is left and help make a clean and green Mumbai – but this seems only to be a text on hoardings, rather than a movement in action!|

Hence, ‘Radio City ki Treety’ is a campaign where a lot of commoner, where our radio jockeys, Sucharita, Sudarshan, Rohitvir and Gaurav, apart from others, extended their audio signatures on our TREEty!

Join in today, Mumbai. Log on to www.saveaarey.org or simply go to their Facebook page (saveaarey) and make your intent heard. We want our children to carry school bags to school, not oxygen cylinders!

Archana Pania hosts the morning show ‘Kasa kai Mumbai with Salil and Archana’ on Radio City 91.1 along with RJ Salil Acharya. She has been actively campaigning for the cause of saving Aarey. 

What do you want to do to save Aarey? Tell us in the comments section below.

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Wellness

Looking for a good doctor? Let this site help you

Run by three Mumbaikars, the website treatum.com helps doctors and patients connect instantly without either of them wasting any time.
by The Editors |editor@themetrognome.in

A good business model is seldom born out of complicated Powerpoint presentations or lengthy sales talks. It is often born out of a simple concept, which you can then refine into a workable enterprise.

Three Mumbai men and friends – Amol Sonavane, Ayub Siddiqui and Ravi Shet – met at a café and were merely discussing different areas in healthcare and IT, when they stumbled upon the perfect solution to an age-old conundrum: how can a person find the right doctor without going to several others or asking around for help? Out of this question came www.treatum.com, the site that the three founded in March 2014 and which is a platform for patients and doctors to find each other with minimum fuss and without wasting time. “If one wants a doctor in a certain area, for example, they can call up a phone-based service like Justdial or go on the Internet and launch a general search. The problem with this is, firstly, that you will receive the names of doctors in a wide geographical area. Secondly, the results are often what not you require – if you have a skin ailment, you can’t go to just any skin doctor. Getting the right doctor for your problem is difficult,” explains Ravi ShetRavi (in pic on left), speaking to The Metrognome.

How does it work?

All a user has to do is log on to the site and ask a question pertaining to his or her problem. “The site offers answers if you want to ask an expert. We also connect you to the right doctor after first understanding what you are looking to address. This saves the patient’s valuable time,” Ravi explains. He adds that many people are unsure of which kind of doctor they need, so they simply describe their problem to the site and get feedback. “At our end, we have over 70 doctors listed with us, in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Pune, so we find out the geographical location of the patient, details of his or her ailment, and then coordinate with the doctor. We don’t interfere in the patient-doctor interaction at all, nor does our business work on the principle of taking a commission from the doctor for every patient that comes through us,” he says.

He also explains that the patient’s query is also looked into to separate pranksters from genuine patients. “We also work only with doctors who have a good track record. Some background checks are also conducted on the doctors’ credentials, because we don’t want to have fraudulent doctors on our roster,” he says.

The site does not charge patients for asking information or eventually interacting with a doctor and taking treatment. “The site is completely free to use for patients, while we charge a small premium for doctors registering with us,” Ravi says.

Why doctors should tie up with the site

On the other end of the spectrum for this site are the medical professionals who register with them for a yearly fee. “Many doctors today don’t have their own website and may be listed with a phone search company. This means that their names will often be lost in the overall lists that these search companies have. Instead of this, we offer doctors a microsite that lists all their information, past successes, any photos or videos, all contact information, etc. We develop the content for the microsite ourselves and maintain the backend processes, too,” Ravi explains.

He claims that doctors and hospitals can register themselves with the site in just 60 seconds. “All the doctor has to do is click on the ‘Are you a Doctor?’ section to get started,” he explains. Depending on the package the doctor pays for, he or she may get a range of services from the site.

How patients can benefit further

Apart from the ease of finding a reliable doctor and getting an appointment with the site’s help, patients can also call up their helpline and speak to the staff to get accurate information. “We also offer patients attractive discounts on some services under the ‘Save your money on Treatments’ section where they can get the best deals on skin, hair, eye, and other treatments, and we don’t charge for these deals,” Ravi says.

He says the site has helped several patients already, and not just in Mumbai. “We had a query from Finland recently, and the patient received excellent treatment from our doctor in Mumbai. There have been queries from other places, too. Ultimately, our site runs on the basis of quick help and trust. We are not here to make money out of patients who are looking for urgent help,” he says, adding that patients appreciate the process of appointments being made for them and quick service.

(Featured image courtesy www.newindianexpress.com)

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Event

World Snooker Championships kick off in Mumbai today

The event was formally inaugurated by Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, will be held at Hotel Grand Hyatt today and tomorrow.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Lovers of snooker, rejoice! The Indian Open Snooker Championships, a World Ranking event, kick off in Mumbai today.

The event was formally inaugurated yesterday by State of Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who also played the opening shot. The event is to be held over two days – March 10 and 11, 2015 – at Hotel Grand Hyatt. Over 50 national and international snooker players, including Indian great Pankaj Advani, will participate in the prestigious event.

Advani was also part of the inauguration team yesterday, which comprised of Jason Ferguson, Chairman, WPBSA, and Capt PVK Mohan, President, Billiards and Snooker Federation of India.

(Picture courtesy Raj Bhavan, Mumbai)

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Little people

City-based NGO is reuniting lost children with their families

A wonderful nation-wide initiative to reunite children currently living in children’s homes with their families was kickstarted in Mumbai last week.
by The Editors | editor@themetrognome.in

Every parent’s worst nightmare centres around their children – that they are hurt, lost or dead, and that the parent is unable to keep their child out of harm’s way. Unfortunately, and despite all precautions to the contrary, some parents are faced with the trauma of losing their child. India registers staggering numbers of ‘missing’ or ‘lost’ cases of children every year, where most are abducted while the others run away from home. In most cases, however, the child is a victim of trafficking.

Where do children go, once their link to their home is abruptly broken? Some land up in children’s homes across the country, while thousands of others continue to remain ‘lost’ forever. How do children housed in children’s homes find their way back, if they ever do?

A city-based NGO, My Home India, has been doing notable work in reuniting children housed in children’s homes with their families. Over the last year and a half, the NGO has successfully reunited 166 such children from a Dongri-based children’s home, and helped four more children from Shahadra and Tis Hazari, New Delhi. The NGO is now going national with its noble work – last week, it launched ‘Sapno Se Apno Tak’, a nationwide programme that seeks to reunite all children sheltered in children’s homes  in India with their families.

Said Sunil Deodhar, founder, My Home India, “Under this project, we first try to gather all the details about children from the Children’s Home authorities. Later, we attempt to track the child’s family through a nation-wide network of our volunteers and then extend all possible help to the family in completing the legal process of release. However, our job doesn’t end here. We make an effort to keep in touch with the reunited children and their families.” He added that on a regular basis, the NGO conducts counselling sessions, medical camps and festival celebrations at children’s homes in coordination with the authorities. “We will work in association with various Government authorities and NGOs to spread awareness about this problem and obliterate the root causes of child trafficking in the country. We have recently received permission from the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Maharashtra to work at all children’s homes in the State.”

The launch of the initiative took place at Veer Savarkar Sabhagruha, Dadar, and was dedicated to the memory of Eknath Thakur, Chairman, Saraswat Bank and former President of My Home India.

The NGO intends to set up a My Home India unit in every children’s home in the country, hoping to reunite every child with its family over the next five or six years.

(Picture courtesy tbtchome.blogspot.com. Featured image used for representational purpose only)

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Guest writer

Are you raising a racehorse?

Umpteen tuition, skill and hobby classes, sky high expectations…are we raising a generation of decent, smart children or super intelligent robots?
Aarohi Mehtaby Aarohi Mehta

If someday I were to make a list of FAQs put to me, the undisputed winner would be, “So which after-school classes does your child go to?”

Now, I have nothing against nurturing a child’s talent and letting him or her pursue a hobby. In fact, in today’s times, when all one seems to be doing is getting up, rushing to catch an already-packed local train, slogging away and coming home drained of all senses, a hobby is a cozy nook where one retreats to find solace. So why not get the kids started when they are still young?

But then, the proverbial buck refuses to stop here. It is now a plethora of hobbies that a child is exposed to. So an average eight-year old is expected to excel at academics, play the keyboard, dance away to glory, swim on weekends, win accolades in school competitions, and somewhere between all these find the time to attend the phonics and abacus classes regularly. If for some reason the child lags behind and cannot cope with these Herculean standards, voilà! The “Mid-brain activation” seminars come to the rescue.

These seminars supposedly help in using both sides of the brain optimally. The results proclaimed by the activation centers are “super kids” Burden of expectationswith super intelligence. And pray, why does one need to have super kids? Is it so that they can solve a Rubik’s cube or read a newspaper blindfolded? I am still waiting for a day in my life when solving any puzzle blindfolded has helped me resolve a life-threatening situation, or even pull myself out of whatever soup I may be in, to say the least.

Gone are those days when children used to come home from school, throw their school bags on the floor and head out to play till late in the evenings. I lament the fact that today,  hardly any mother has to go searching for her child in the colony’s play area and bring back a sweaty, bruised but happy child at the end of the day. Hobbies become burdens when enforced. Mozart’s mother did not latch a satchel on to his little back and bundle him off to learn the piano from some coach. Shakespeare’s father never took him to any creative writing class. Even Vishwanathan Anand never  attended those hourly weekend chess classes!

Water always finds its level. All we need to give it is space to flow. Let nature work its magic. Our role as parents is to raise children, not breed racehorses.

Aarohi Mehta is a Professor of French at Alliance Française de Bombay, a full-time mom, bibliophile, holder of opinions and dabbler in words.

(Pictures courtesy www.thehindu.com, www.ibtimes.co.uk. Images are used for representational purpose only)

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