New Delhi: The 1,300-bed Amrita Hospital, Kochi, has been felicitated for its exemplary contribution during the Covid and post-COVID period at a Conference organized by Religare Enterprises and Delhi’s Sir Ganga Ram Hospital. The event, titled 'An Indian Perspective on Covid and Post Covid,' was held in the national capital to shed light on the pandemic’s humanitarian aspects. It recognized and showcased the great work done by Amrita Hospital for battling the COVID epidemic, saving the lives of thousands of people, and advancing the frontiers of medical science.

Dr Dipu T S, Clinical Associate Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Amrita Hospital, Kochi, and Mr Satyananda Mishra, Executive Director, Projects, Amrita Hospital together received the honours on behalf of the hospital.

Upon receiving the award, Dr Prem Nair, Group Medical Director, Amrita Hospitals, said: “I am deeply moved to receive this award as recognition of Amrita Hospital’s immense contribution in effectively managing the COVID pandemic during those very stressful and challenging times. The credit for the exemplary work done by us goes to my exceptionally talented and dedicated colleagues at the hospital, and the vision, encouragement, and guidance of our beloved Amma, Mata Amritanandamayi Devi.”

Recounting the immense contribution of Amrita Hospital in battling the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr Prem Nair said: “When the pandemic struck, everyone at the hospital stepped up with an unwavering commitment to take it head-on. We sprang into action with a multipronged strategy to safeguard the well-being of patients, healthcare front liners, and the entire community. We established a specialized testing and treatment facility which administered care to 20,000 Covid patients, with a staggering 2,000 of them requiring critical care. At the beginning of the pandemic, we converted one of our peripheral centers exclusively for Covid and later turned our 500-bed medical college building into a Covid facility.”

He added: “The hospital partnered with Indian and global healthcare institutions to conduct studies in Covid treatment, prevention and finding solutions. We were the first in the country to initiate a public-private partnership (PPP) in vaccination. We carried out mass-free vaccination campaigns, administering over three lakh vaccines and donating vaccines worth over Rs 2 crore. We reached out to the remotest villages in India through 14 Covid resilience centers. We developed an in-house clinical decision-support app to identify clinical deterioration in Covid patients under home quarantine. Extensive research was also carried out to define the post-Covid syndrome to address this highly lethal illness in children.”

Dr Nair said: “Over 100 Covid-related publications by our doctors helped advance healthcare knowledge. In collaboration with Amrita University, our researchers came up with innovations like accessible low-cost ventilators for respiratory support, innovative PAPR respiratory gear for frontline worker protection, superior nano-mask that performs better than N-95 masks, low-cost IOT devices for recognizing early patient deterioration, and robots for disinfection, serving quarantine patients, etc. Notably, our doctors explored inhaled nitric oxide as a potential Covid treatment, which attracted much interest from the medical community worldwide.”

Martin Schalling, MD, Karolinska Institute, Sweden, was the Chief Guest at the event. Prominent attendees included Dr Murli Manohar Joshi, Former Union Minister of India; Dr Ajay Swaroop, Chairman - of the Board of Management, Sir Ganga Ram Hospital; and Dr Rashmi Saluja, Executive Chairperson, Religare, among others. The delegates shared key insights about addressing the shortcomings and the future of the healthcare system before and after Covid.

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