Cama Hospital: First state-run hospital to offer urogynaecology fellowships

The Taj Public Welfare Trust has already donated the equipment for this department, while the ongoing construction is sponsored under the CSR activity of a health tech company.

Mumbai: The state-run Cama and Albless Hospital will soon become the only government hospital in Maharashtra to not only have a department in the relatively young science of urogynaecology but also offer fellowships in the subject. The state is in the process of recruiting and redirecting staff into this department.

“Cama Hospital has been striving for many years to build this department. As a way to test the need for it, we also started a dedicated OPD for urogynaecology just before the start of the pandemic. After seeing the huge inflow of patients in the hospital, it was decided to set up the department,” said superintendent Dr Tushar Palve. He said medical education minister Girish Mahajan was a big help to turn the proposal into reality. (Pic Courtesy: Cama and Albless Hospital)

The Taj Public Welfare Trust has already donated the equipment for this department, while the ongoing construction is sponsored under the CSR activity of a health tech company. Urogynecological and Reconstructive Surgery, which would otherwise be extremely costly in private hospitals, would be done at little to no cost at Cama Hospital.

Dr Aparna Hegde – who got trained in urogynaecology at Cleveland Clinic in Florida, USA – will head the department.

“Cama Hospital has been striving for many years to build this department. As a way to test the need for it, we also started a dedicated OPD for urogynaecology just before the start of the pandemic. After seeing the huge inflow of patients in the hospital, it was decided to set up the department,” said superintendent Dr Tushar Palve. He said medical education minister Girish Mahajan was a big help to turn the proposal into reality.

Dr Palve said that the construction work for the department is currently underway on the ground and first floors of the old radiotherapy building. CitiusTech Healthcare Technology Private Limited is contributing to the building cost while Taj Public Services Welfare Trust has pitched in with ₹2.3 crores.

Dr J B Sharma, Chairperson of the Federation of Gynaecological Societies of India (FOGSI) Urogynecology Committee, who runs the urogynaecology department at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, said women would usually suffer in silence in many of the problems tackled by urogynaecologists. “Most of our patients are elderly women with problems like bladder issues, incontinence, prolapse and pelvic floor disorders. They may be a part of normal ageing, but women didn’t even feel comfortable discussing such problems with their doctors,” he added.

That is the reason it is a discipline that started evolving as a super specialty only twelve years ago, said Sharma. India has very few surgeons or fellowships in the subject.