Heart Bridage

Chairman

Rtn .Dr Anand Somaya

Heart Bridage

By dialing `105', the person suffering from a heart attack will be attended by an emergency ambulance service with basic life-sustaining equipments and a paramedical attendant.

This service is in association with 15 Hospitals covering the entire city of Mumbai. The ambulances are owned and controlled by the Club, call response time and service quality is monitored by the club and quality assured

More than 500 lives have been saved.

Over a hundred residents of Mumbai continue to be served by this facility each year.

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Summary of Previous Activity:

Ongoing work:

Calls received on 1050 are monitored through a call centre, i2I Enterprises, which directs the calls to the nearest hospitals. This dedicated call centre receives and coordinates distress calls on a 24x7 basis on the helpline 1050.

14 ambulances, fully equipped with specialised cardiac care equipment and trained personnel, provided to 14 hospitals, and completely funded by the Club, are sent out to patients experiencing cardiac seizures, to stabilize them and rush them to a nearby hospital of their choice, completely free of charge.

The service quality of the call centre is monitored on a weekly basis.

Expansion:

The Heart Brigade Committee is in the process of tying up with more hospitals such as Asian Heart Institute, Breach Candy Hospital, Hiranandani Hospital, Cumballa Hill Hospital, Hinduja Hospital and Bhatia Hospital. Publicity: Hospitals were informed of the change in the Heart Brigade phone number from 105 to 1050. The service was publicized in leading newspapers, and arrangements were made with local theatres and cable channels. Rotary clubs of District 3140 were also requested to publicize Bombay Heart Brigade services in their respective club magazines.

Cellphone service providers were requested to incorporate the Heart Brigade No 1050 in their system so that emergency calls can be made through the mobile.

26th September 2004 was celebrated as World Heart Day and the Committee, along with Women’s Movement for Peace and Prosperity, organized a Health Week for bar girls at GD Somani Memorial School.

Advocate Homi Ranina kindly donated a sum of Rs 1.5 million (15 lakh) to the Club towards purchase of three new Maruti Omni ambulances costing Rs 450,000 (4.5 lakh) each, and towards repair and maintenance of the fleet.

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Looking After the Hearts of Policemen for World Heart Day

Observing World Heart Day on Saturday, 24th September, the Heart Brigade Committee, under the leadership of Rtn Dr Anand Somaiya, held a Cardiac checkup camp for the Mumbai Police at the Azad Maidan police Station. In this, Dr Somaiya was supported by four doctors — Dr Rajendra Umbadkar, Dr Zuber Shaikh, Dr Basavraj Kamath and Dr Anil Sharma — from Bombay Hospital and technical staff from Balaji and Sushrusha Hospital. The blood sugar test was carried out with the help of Abbott Diabetes Care.

At the camp, 260 Police Constables and officers were checked as under: 200 ECG check-ups, 126 blood group check-up, and 225 blood sugar tests. Those who require further follow up will receive it at the Bombay Hospital.

Others present included President Harry Singh Arora, Vice President Ashish Vaid, PP Sandip Agarwalla, Jt Hon Secy Bipin Kapadia, Rtn Nandan Damani and R’Ann Biba Arora. Also present were Kunti Oza (Bipin’s sister) of Clean Mumbai Organization and Club Social Workers Narayan Sawant and Sudhakar Ingawale. Police Dignitaries present included Police Commissioner Anami Roy, Additional Commissioner of Police Kanak Ratna, ACP Ashok Goray, DCP Brijesh Sinh and DCP Pratap Digambar.

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Cardiac Camp at Naigaon Police Station

A cardiac camp was held at the Naigaon Police Hospital for police personnel of North Mumbai on Sunday, 15th October. It was organized by the Club’s Heart Brigade committee, with doctors from the Bombay Hospital and Balaji Hospital, as well as paramedical personnel, technicians, blood grouping personnel and ECG equipment from Balaji Hospital. The blood sugar estimation for all patients was organized by Abbot Laboratories, Mumbai.

The doctors who were involved were: Cardiologists Dr B C Kalmat and Dr Anil Sharma, Dr Zuber Shaikh from the Department of Cardiac Surgery, and Dr Pradnya Kulkarni, Cardiac Anaesthetist and Intensivist.

During the camp 140 cardiac cases underwent blood grouping, blood sugar estimation, blood pressure, ECG and complete cardiac check up. All patients who required further follow-up in the way of stress test, angiography and angioplasty or cardiac surgery are being further followed up by the above doctors and me at the Bombay Hospital and the Balaji Hospital.

At the inaugural function, and Assistant Commissioner of Police and three Deputy Commissioners of Police expressed their deep gratitude to Rotary Club of Bombay, Bombay Hospital and Balaji Hospital for having organized this camp, as well as the previous camp on 24th September at Azad Maidan Police Station. They requested two more camps in the following two months so that all police personnel in the greater Mumbai area were covered.

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World Heart Day at Bandra Kurla Complex Police Station

The third heart check up camp for the Mumbai Police Force was organised by the Heart Brigade of the Rotary Club of Bombay on Sunday, November 26 at the Bandra Kurla Police Station from 12 noon to 6 pm This is the most modern police station in the country and boasts of a large air conditioned auditorium, which was where the camp was conducted by the Rotary Heart Brigade and Shushrusha Heart Hospital.

The doctors who participated in the camp were: • Dr Anand Somaya, Chairman of the Heart Brigade • Dr Rajendra Umbarkar, Consultant Cardiac Surgeon • Dr D C Kalmath and Dr Anil Sharma, Consultant Cardiologists • Dr (Mrs) P Kulkarni, Senior Consultant Cardiac Anaesthetist • Dr Sanjay Tarlekar, Consultant Cardiologist of Shushrusha Heart Hospital • Dr Zuber Shaikh, Bombay Hospital.

Before the camp began the Joint Commissioner of Police had organised a small inauguration ceremony during which he welcomed the various doctors involved and presented each of them with a memento from the Mumbai Police. Rtn Harry Singh Arora, President of the Rotary Club of Bombay and his wife, R’Ann Biba, were present during the inauguration and were also presented with a memento and flowers.

210 cardiac patients were examined during the course of the afternoon. All patients were from the west zone of the Mumbai Police. They all underwent ECG, blood grouping, random blood sugar test and a complete physical examination. Those that required it were prescribed medication and several were called for follow up at the Bombay Hospital and Shushrusha Heart Hospital.

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