Fertility Programme Added To Mother-Child Success Story

Cloudnine Group of women, childcare and fertility hospitals marked the first anniversary of its Chandigarh centre with a gala ‘Pregnancy Feista’, claiming to have become, within a year of its existence, the private hospital hosting the highest number of would-be-mothers every month in the region. “We are currently hosting 60-plus mothers-to-be in the hospital every month and our success rate in handling deliveries and neonatal complications has been near 100%,” Dr Pawan Kumar, Regional Director (North) of the group, told media persons during a select interaction.

“Recently we also launched an in-house fertility programme in the Chandigarh hospital, and our fertility lab here has been recognised by visiting renowned fertility experts as the best among all hospitals in Chandigarh and Punjab,” Dr Kumar said, adding that the success of the fertility programme across the group hospitals has been 50%, which matches the international benchmark of success for this programme.

Photos By : Life In Chandigarh

The Bengaluru headquartered hospital chain already has 22 centres across seven cities – Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Pune, Gurgaon, Noida and Chandigarh. Looking at the huge potential of women, childcare and fertility centres in the country, especially in the North, the group is planning to add 3-4 more centres in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR). “We are also looking at opening one in Ludhiana, which does not have a single organised setup in this category in the private sector,” Dr Kumar shared.

Founded by then Australia-based neonatologist Dr R Kishore Kumar in 2007 with three other co-founders, the Cloudnine Group of Hospitals is backed by marquee investors Matrix Partners, Sequoia India and India value fund advisors (TrueNorth).

Responding to the ongoing controversy over allegations of private hospitals seeking to mint money by recommending cesarean section over normal delivery, both Dr Kumar and Dr. Mahesh Hiranandani, Head of Pediatrics Department of the hospital in Chandigarh, maintained that though cesarean section procedure had become extremely safe, still the group had a clearly defined policy to encourage normal deliveries. Every caesarean section goes through an audit and doctors are rewarded for maintaining a high track record of normal deliveries. Going a step further, the group hospitals have the same charges for both normal and caesarean deliveries (around Rs 70,000 with a Delux Private Room) to remove the possibility of wrong doing in a doctor recommending a particular delivery method, going strictly by the best option in the case presented before him, they asserted.

Emphasising that a neonatal ICU (NICU) had become a near necessity in reducing infant mortality at childbirth, Dr Hiranandani said most deaths of newborns with complications or premature babies were caused by lack of adequate support and infrastructure with attending doctors. Referring of such cases quickly to NICU-equipped hospitals thus becomes critical for survival of the newborns, he added.

Giving examples of half a dozen premature babies with weights ranging from as low as 600 grams to 1.2 kg currently admitted to NICU in Cloudnine Chandigarh, Dr Hiranandani said the success rate in the 300-odd such cases admitted in their hospital so far, involving 1500 hours of NICU admission, has been 99.3%, which speaks for itself about the world class infrastructure at the hospital. “We have an ambulance, which is a mini NICU in itself, equipped with Rs 60 lakh worth of equipment, for transporting such extreme cases to our hospital,” he emphasised.

Referring to the fertility programme, Dr Pawan Kumar stressed that in most cases resolution of a couple’s distress over not being able to have a child starts with consultation from a good expert. IVF comes as a last resort, as most of the couples get relief with other modes of treatment. In case IVF is found to be the only option, a woman can conceive in three months’ time. The international benchmark success rate for IVF is 50%, and so it is at Cloudnine group hospitals, he remarked.

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