HEALTH

PGI private patients to pay 2 times more
Chitleen K. Sethi
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 22
Patients admitted to the private wards in the PGI will be paying double the treatment and investigation charges as compared to the patients in the PGI ‘s general wards. Other than this major change, the rest of the hike in the PGI treatment rates and investigation costs has been increased by about 10 per cent only keeping the charges well within affordable limits for the general public.

While there has been no change in the OPD registration fee which remains at a nominal Rs 10 per patient, the fee is likely to increase once the registration is computerised. In emergency cases all treatment and investigations will continue to be free for the first 48 hours, except CT scan and MRI.

Each general ward admission which was earlier a total of Rs 25 per day will now cost Rs 20 for diet per day and Rs 15 for bed per day but all routine investigations and minor procedures will be free. Other medicines and disposables are to be provided by the patient. As compared to these charges, private ward room rents will vary from Rs 550 per day to Rs 900 per day, routine investigations will cost Rs 150 per day and Rs 50 for diet per day.

While tubectomies will be done free of cost, an MTP (medical termination of pregnancy) will cost Rs 250 in the private ward and Rs 100 in the general ward, a delivery will cost Rs 1000 in the private and Rs 300 in the general ward, a Ceasarian will cost Rs 2000 in the private ward and Rs 1000 in the general ward and an abortion Rs 1000 in the private ward and Rs 300 in the general ward. Rates of blood investigations will vary from Rs 30 to Rs 100 while screening for cervicle and breast cancer will be done free of cost. A Single biopsy will cost Rs 250 and a pregnancy test, Rs 60. Investigations for various parasites which was mostly free will now vary from Rs 25 to Rs 700, a CT of the head will cost Rs 800 while a CT scan of the body will cost Rs 1600. An MRI will cost Rs 3000.

As far as surgical procedures are concerned, a temporary pace maker insertion will be done free while a CABG + Single valve replacement will cost Rs 20000 in private wards and Rs 10000 in the general ward, a CABG + IABP will cost Rs 42000 in the private ward and Rs 33000 in the general ward. The cost of a balloon valvotomy has been reduced from Rs 5000 to Rs 2000. Double valve replacement will cost Rs 12000 in the private ward and Rs 6000 in the general ward. The cost of general surgery will vary from Rs 500 to Rs 5000. A cataract extraction will cost Rs 2000 in the private ward and Rs 1000 in the general ward, while a squint surgery will cost Rs 2000 in the private ward and Rs 1000 in the general ward.

Total hip replacement/knee replacement will cost Rs 7500 in the private ward and Rs 3750 in the general ward. Re-implantation of a limb will cost Rs 8000 to a private patient and Rs 4000 to the general patient.

Radiodiagnosis programme
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 22
Department of Radiodiagnosis and Imaging at the PGI is organising a two-day continuing medical education programme on spiral CT and colour doppler, under the auspices of Indian Radiological and Imaging Association, Punjab and Chandigarh branch, from March 23.

The Spiral CT scanning, which is considered a virtual revolution in CT technology, involves the replacement of the old stop and shoot technology by continuous scanning of a body region allowing complete scanning in a period of less than 30 seconds. The PGI has recently acquired two new CT scanners, one of these is a single slice and the other is a multi slice spiral.

The multi-slice spiral CT scanner has a provision to take four to 32 slices in a single rotation.

Advances in the computer technology and work station manipulation of the data has also created new applications such as CT angiography and virtual endoscopy. With the help of multi-slice spiral CT scan, it has now become possible to visualise the blood vessels without having to introduce catheter or look into the lumen of the gut without endoscope.

These and many other applications of the latest in radiodiagnosis will be focussed during the CME.

PGI Spring Fest a big hit
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, March 22
The stage is set for the last two days of the PGI spring fest. With the dance competitions and modelling slated for tomorrow and the day after, the students are clearly looking forward to these events.

Those who won the various competitions in the past two days include Ela and Shruti, who got the first prize in what’s the good word, Bala and Srinivas won the second prize while Deepshikha and Sharda’s team came third. The cast of film ‘Gutter’, which included Mandeep, Narinder, Ganesh, Aman Pal, Munish, Navdeep, Raghav, Sandeep and Abhi got the first prize in the twisted movies contest.

Partibha, Tanuja and Sonal got the first prize in the contest ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’ while Abhiv, Rahul and Munish’s team came second and Ceaser, Gangesh and Arvind’s team came third. Vishal and Jagjit got the first prize in Antakshri while Renu and Munish came second and Sharda and Akshi came third.

The team of Abhir, Subramaniam and Rahul won the first prize in Pictionary contest while Ruchshifa and her team came second and Jagjeet, Narinder and Vishal came third. Abhijit, Sandeep, Pramod and their team won the first prize in Mad ads contest while Mandeep Sodhi, Munish Kochhar, Ganesh Prasad, Raghav Datta, Narinder Bhardwaj and Navdeep came second.

The department of biochemistry’s team which included Ajay Grover, Anjana Rohila, Suraj, Pramod, Sandeep, Taruna, Micky, Naushad, Puneet, Mridul and Qurat won the choreography contest. Shruti and her group won the second prize.

Rashim won the first prize in the Kavi Sammelan while Geetanjali came second and Ajay Attri and Barpreet shared the third prize.

SPORTS

‘Maha-kushti’ on DD Sports
Our Sports Reporter

Chandigarh, March 22
The ‘Maha Kushti’, a show to promote wrestling and revive freestyle kushti in India, will be launched on Doordarshan Sports in mid-April and shooting for the same will commence from tomorrow at the Skating Rink in Sector 10. Stating this to newspersons, Dara Singh, India’s famous wrestler said in the land of Guru Hanuman and Master Chandgi Ram, the youth of this country were watching the steroid-pumped machinations of wrestlers from WWF. Dara Singh said the idea was to promote wrestling in a big way as interest in it had dwindled over the years. He said the idea was conceived by Taal India Communications since its producer, Dr Samir Bhargava and director, Noel Mc Periera were both quite experienced in this field.

The wrestling, both Greco-Roman and Olympic style, would be promoted by giving different names to prominent wrestlers.

Top class wrestlers like Rustam-e-Hind Shamsher Singh, Ratan Aulakh, Baljeet Sngh, Amandeep, Mukesh Kumar, Surjit Kumar, Palwinder Cheema among others would perform for this serial. Dara Singh has personally recruited and trained the freestyle wrestlers to revive this otherwise glorious sport.

It would be a commissioned programme and city buffs could walk in freely for the shooting from March 23 to March 27.

UT cricket tourney

A record number of 75 teams will take part in the sixth UT League Cricket Tournament to be organised by the UT Cricket Association at various venues in the city from March 23. According to Mr S.S. Bawa, secretary of the UTCA, this year the response was overwhelming as only 48 teams had taken part last year. He said a total of 11 teams had been kept in pool A, 11 in pool B, 53 in pool C.

Hot weather tennis

The Chandigarh Lawn Tennis Association will hold the Chandigarh Hot Weather tennis tournament at the Tennis stadium, Sector 10 from March 26 to March 30. In a press note sent by the CLTA, the categories are, boys under 10, boys and girls under 12, under 14 and under 16. Entries close on March 26 at 8 am. The participants should bring with them their original date of birth certificates.

DAV cricket academy to start in September
Our Correspondent

Chandigarh, March 22
The DAV College Cricket Academy will start functioning by September this year on the college premises in Sector 10. This was stated by Mr S. Marriya, principal of the college. Mr Marriya along with Mr Yograj Singh, former Test cricketer, said various facilities like multi-gym, Yoga and meditation centre, gymnastics training facility, one matting wicket and one cement wicket were already in place.

Mr Marriya said they would enrol talented school children, who would however study in another school to be identified later. Mr Yograj said emphasis would be laid on grooming fast bowlers, which India had been needing for long. He said the academy would nurture talent from rural areas.

He said they would bid for various cricket tournaments like the Hero Honda Cup by the BCCI, Ranji Trophy and other big meets. A corpus fund would also be raised, so that the academy could become self-sufficient in the long run. He said soon with a sponsor tie-up would be announced.

He said legendary cricketers like Kapil Dev had already shown interest in promoting cricket in the college and would be one of the visiting coaches for the boys’ academy.

Mr Marriya said the college would also hire the services of coaches in two disciplines, rowing and archery. A running trophy would also be donated by him for the best sportsman of the year of the college and a cash award of Rs 5,000 would be given.

ADMINISTRATION

MC asked to propose draft voters’ list
Tribune News Service

Panchkula, March 22
The State Election Commission has today issued a notification to the administration for preparing the Municipal Electoral rolls. With this, the stage is set for the firstever elections to the Panchkula Municipal Council to be held by the end of June.

It is learnt that the State Election Commission has asked the administration to initiate action for preparing the draft electoral rolls based on the voters’ list of the last Assembly elections held three years ago. The draft voter list will be published on April 4.

After the draft voter’s list is published, voters of the township will be required to submit their claims and objections to the revising authority, who in turn will be appointed by the District Magistrate, Panchkula.

It may be noted that the Election Commission had earlier approved the use of online voters’ list and other elections-related procedures, for the Municipal Council elections due in May. With this, Panchkula has become the first district in the country for having this online facility. This facility will enable the voters to view and access electoral information online, and if need be, file claims, objections and seek alterations on the data, all on the Net. Called the Web Enabled Electoral Rolls (WEER), this will be available on the net in both English and Hindi.

When contacted, the City Magistrate, Mr Rajesh Jogpal, confirmed that the notification had been issued. He also informed that on April 4, the online facility, which has been given the id, mcepkl.chd.nic.in, by the State Election Commission, will display the draft electoral rolls. He said that the notification , delimitation of wards and other information related to the MC elections would be available to surfers from tomorrow onwards.

He also informed that Electronic Voting Machines will be put to use in these elections. He said that other than the online voters list, as many as 10 centres will also be created for the physical checking of voters list in different parts of the township. Each centre will cover four wards carved out for the MC elections.

It is learnt that the final electoral rolls will be published on May 16 and the elections will be held within the 42-day time-period after the publishing of the electoral rolls.