BY: DELLIA RISMAY
Medical professionals at Health City Cayman Islands say that the hospital is making strides in providing quality, affordable healthcare for those living in the Caribbean.
At the annual Caribbean Cardiology Conference held last month, physicians from Health City gathered in St. Lucia to share the innovative work that’s been done in the hospital’s four-year history, as well as the plans they have to further improve patient care in the future.
The health center is the vision of Dr. Devi Shetty, a renowned heart surgeon, and humanitarian. Narayana Health, one of India’s largest private healthcare systems, supports Health City. Upon its opening in February 2014, it became the first advanced medical facility and tertiary care hospital in the Cayman Islands.
At the conference, Dr. Ravi Kishore, Health City’s Chief Interventional Cardiologist, and Electrophysiologist said the hospital has become an affordable, viable option for local, regional and international patients.
“The alternative to specialty care was going to the U.S. mainland, but unfortunately, there is a constraint of cost in such situations,” Dr. Kishore said in a press release. He also noted that there are also constraints on securing visas. “So, we have been able to address these two issues, we are a very affordable health organization with a passion to cure rather than to charge.”
Dr. Kishore, who has over 20 years of experience in cardiology, says he and his team of cardiologists are focusing on providing excellent care to all their patients. “We study problems of the heart, so we have been striving to be state-of-the-art, contemporary, and to give the best available tertiary solutions to the Caribbean region,” Dr. Kishore said.
The conference, which took place from July 18th to the 21st, was themed ‘Meeting the Challenges of Cardiac Care in an Ever-Changing Caribbean’. Dr. Kishore, along with his colleagues Dr. Dhruva Kumar Krishnan and Dr. Pankaj Gundad, discussed the hospital’s plans for the future, including an expansion into radiation and surgical oncology procedures over the next year.
In the four years that the hospital has been open, it has been the first health center in the region to perform a number of medical procedures. Among them is a treatment for atrial fibrillation, which is a condition that can lead to strokes and cardiac failure due to irregular heartbeats. The treatment, called Cardiac Contractility Modulation, or CCM, involves implanting a device in patients with heart failure who are not responding adequately to medical therapy. “This can potentially revolutionize a segment of patients with heart failure with limited options,” said Dr. Kishore. Currently, Health City is the only center in the Caribbean, Central, and South America that offers CCM treatment.
Another example of Health City being a regional pioneer happened in 2017 when the hospital began utilizing an advanced form of life support called Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation, or ECMO. It acts as an artificial heart or a set of lungs during therapy, allowing the patient’s organs to rest so they can heal naturally.
Dr. Krishnan, like his colleagues, is optimistic about the future of the hospital, and the impact the hospital will have in terms of improving patient’s lives. “We are looking at elevating the quality of healthcare in the Caribbean as a whole…so it is important that we have as broad a spectrum of services for people in the region to benefit from,” he said.
