The Madras Medical Mission will help government hospitals in Chad set up facilities such as pathology laboratories and peritoneal dialysis units.
A team including administrators and doctors from the Government Centre Hospitalier Universitaire La Renaissance are currently visiting MMM and have entered into an agreement to develop specialities such as cardiology, nephrology and urology in hospitals in that country.
Mahamat Hissein Ali, deputy medical director of Hospitalier Universitaire La Renaissance, said the hospital is a public teaching facility and the country is looking to set up specialities such as pathology, telemedicine, nephrology, cardiology, rheumatology, neurology and urology.
“We plan to collaborate in phases. The first phase will look at nephrology, pathology, telemedicine and training in these areas. We have only five qualified nephrologists in Chad and our partnership with the nephrology department in MMM will help increase the number of patients who can access appropriate care,” Dr. Ali said.
Chad has five major government hospitals and the government hoped to extend the collaboration with MMM to all of them, he added.
Raju George, chief executive officer of MMM, said the collaboration will begin in December. MMM and Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences will train personnel visiting from Chad. “We will be expanding our telemedicine network into Chad to help the hospital set up a full-fledged telemedicine facility. The hospital could use MMM’s services to help them with their pathology needs through this service,” he said.
MMM’s nephrologists Sanjiv Nair and P. Rajivalochana will help the Chadian hospital set up peritoneal dialysis centre to augment the existing haemodialysis services that it currently offers.
The Indian specialists have put the Chadian delegation in touch with equipment manufacturers in India to enable them to source the required systems for their hospitals.
Healthcare personnel, including doctors and nurses, could be trained at MMM for three to six months following which the Chadian hospital will set up a facility. In future renal transplantation services could also be established, according to a release from MMM.
