CMC- Chittoor Campus : CPAC Visit

CPAC VISIT TO CMC CHITTOOR CAMPUS::

Like everyone of you even CPAC had many doubts regarding CMC and its sincerity in establishing Chittoor campus even after procuring 630 acres of land.

After site visit and meeting CMC Asst Director, you need to appreciate  what CMC s trying to do...

Pls read completely to appreciate the efforts of CPAC and CMC in this aspect:

CPAC Team Visit to CMC Hospital Chittoor Campus

Around 4 years ago many people in Chittoor were delighted when CMC Vellore announced that they would start a CMC campus at chittoor. It has been 4 years now and unlike the other medical institutes like Apollo which would start its institute this year,CMC management were very slow in their progress for their campus in Chittoor. Owing to delay in establishment of CMC many rumors took birth.

CPAC along with few other NGO´s decided to burst the wild rumors circulating widely , so we taught it would be a good idea to write to CMC management and we did the same. We were a small group of individuals working towards Chittoor´s development and we were astonished when one of the associate directors of CMC responded to us stating that he would like to meet us at CMC Chittoor campus and explain us about the current facilities existing over there and future plans of CMC.

CPAC met CMC management on 16th ofApril.We would like to share the conversation we had with CMC management.

CMC Director : Around 6 years ago we had a letter from secretary of the then AP government stating that AP government is inviting institutions of national repute to start their campus in AP. CMC was interested and we went further but AP government initially allotted us 25 acres of land in Hyderabad and we at CMC felt the logistic difficulties would make it difficult for us to establish our hospital in Hyderabad and we at CMC also look at the necessity of our health services to the location where we are present.So we requested AP government to allot us an alternative location preferably nearer to CMC Vellore. So AP government helped us purchase around 650 acres of land in Gudipala near Chittoor. CMC management looked at the health statistics of the then Chittoor area and it was less than the national average .If a disease like dengue strikes Chittoor ,CMC vellore would be full of patients from

Diagnostics Facility

Chittoor.So we felt having CMC in Chittoor would serve the purpose of citizens of Chittoor The acquired land consisted of government land,private land…etc….CMC believes in sustainable growth.We ensured that each and every farmer who gave land to CMC is fairly compensated. So we compensated the land lords through lokadalits inviting the then high court judge of AP. The land is mostly hilly and doesn't have water source but the then AP government assured us that a water line would run through the institute which would help us overcome the waterproblem.We do understand the difficulties of building a hospital and medical college without water and at the same time we also understand the difficulties of getting water here so we decided to save each and every drop of rain which falls on this 600 acresland.You can see the lake being constructed outside this building.Over the time I believe the water in the lake would be more than sufficient for CMC and we would recharge excess water to the bore wells here which would serve the farmers surrounding this area who gave the land for us and this is what we call sustainable growth.All the infrastructure you see here should have been created 3 years ago but due to some issues we are 4 years late and CMC management learnt a lot from these issues.

CPAC : All is good but we see only pre-fab buildings and we get a feeling that it may not be permanent ?

CMC Director : Do you know how much CMC charges its medical students per year ??

CPAC : It might be 1 lakh-2 lakh rupees.

CMC Director : We charge Rs 3000 per year per student.We at CMC believe that education is a gift and it shouldn't be charged and in return students are expected to consider patients as god and treat them for their lifetime. CMC runs its hospital and institutes only through the money which it earns by treating itspatients.If we spend a rupee more we need to pass this burden to our patients and we at CMC don't want to do this .Pre-fabricated technology is fastest to construct,economical and environmentally friendly.Moreover today we don't have the necessity to build vertically since we have abundant horizontal area here and when necessity arises we would think of buildingvertically.You people can see the difference in temperature inside this pre-fabricated structures as you come inside from the hotsun.We want CMC Chittoor to be sustainable with the little revenue which we earn from patients in CMC Chittoor. We at CMC believe in fair compensationalso.We ensure that even people like sweepers who work for us are fairly compensated and they get best wages compared to their counter parts working outside. For the maintenance of CMC Chittoor currently we are spending around 2 times the revenue which we earn by treating patients here.We want CMC Chittoor to be sustainable with the money which we charge patients and at the same time we ensure that patients are not burdened. We have currently developed the infrastructure in CMC Chittoor taking this into picture and also the necessities of the citizens of Chittoor area. Many people from ctr come to CMC vellore for deliveries.So we currently have a labor ward which can handle 8 deliveries in a single instant oftime.150 beds are available to admit patients here.We have requested an orthopedic and 5 other specialists to workhere.The dental ward is ready and it would be available for Chittoor citizens in a months time and two MDS doctors would be available here.We also have a trauma care unit here which would be utilized for treating most of the people who come from accidents and other emergencies. Many of our doctors are exited to work here after working in CMC Vellore which has a pretty old infrastructure though serving the patients at large.You can also see theoperation theaters present here.Currently we rented some houses for our doctors in Chittoor and over time we would build accommodation facilities for them here itself inside the campus.800 patients transit the AP-TN border everyday and we understand that at least 20% of this crowd would come to CMC Vellore and we would like all these crowd to get treated in CMC Chittoor itself. Many patients from Chittoor travel to CMC Vellore for diagnosis and we would like CMC Chittoor to handle most of the diagnosis for the Chittoor patients. We also trained a group of nurses who speak the local language and they would be coming here in 6 months time. Our idea is to get the institute to certain level from which the institute would grow on its own.

CPAC : What about the medical institutes sir ??

Let me tell you that at CMC Vellore we don't like to spend even a single rupee from our pockets for something which is out of the books.Even to offer you this tea and snacks,I have to justify my management. Today we are an institution of international repute and we had all the infrastructure to handle a pg course at our institute 20 years ago,but you would be surprised if I would tell you that we were not given a licence initially to do a pg course from government and when we applied for it in 2000 but 5 years later the government gave us.We at CMC believe that we need to treat patients like god and god will in turn take care of us. We could have gone to media regarding CMC Chittoor but we believe that our work should speak.Weare neither into medical tourism nor competition to any medical institute.Ourjob is to give quality medical service to people who come to us.

Having said this we would like to start those institutes which add a good value to our country and also those which would be given licenses quickly like nursing.Most of the villages CMC adopted has health statistics on par with the top health indicators of the world.Our idea is to start a public health institute here which would educate the people of India working in health sector and an institute for continuing education.We at CMC believe in a slow sustainable and needbasedgrowth.We believe that in a 5 years span our hospital,nursing college and few other institutes will be fully functional.

CPAC : We heard that Tamil Nadu government offered you land near Madurai and that would have been the reason for the slow progress of CMC Chittoor ?

CMC Director : CMC Chittoor is the only campus which CMC maintains along with CMC Vellore and we would like to focus only on these two campuses.We don t have offers from any other governments.

CPAC: How can we help you for CMC chittoor??

CMC Director : I can say that you all are ourAngels.You can form a group like friends of CMC and we all can meet for christmas at the CMC chittoor campus and we can also plan some other activities. Initially we were of the idea of not building this boundary since we at CMC believe that boundaries separate people and we want to build long lasting relationships with people.