Apollo Hospitals opens critical care unit with ICU facility at Sabarimala

Apollo Hospitals has set up a full-fledged critical care unit with ICU facility at Sabarimalai for the healthcare needs of devotees going to Lord Iyappa temple. The seven-bedded centre at Pamba was established based on the request made by Akhila Bharatha Iyappa Seva Sangam.

Already there is an Apollo Clinic cum information centre functioning at Pamba for Iyappa devotees. Since there was a request for starting full-fledged unit, the Apollo Hospitals Group chairman Dr.Prathap C. Reddy decided to set up a state-of-the art critical care unit there so that a devotee in emergency would get timely medical attention.

Dr.Rohini Sridhar, Chief Operating Officer and Director of Medical Services, Apollo Speciality Hospitals, Madurai, has said that the seven-bedded critical care centre at Pamba in Sabarimala is a 2,500 square feet facility which will be fully operational from November, 16, 2011.

Apollo clinic which was started in the year 2000 at Pamba had now grown to a 24-hour unit with ICU facility and it had provided timely care to nearly two lakh patients during the past 10 years. This unit will be connected with other major centres through telemedicine facility in order to get expert opinion for emergency cases.

Besides free consultation and ICU care, the Sabarimala devotees are also given medicines free of cost as a part of the Apollo Group’s corporate social responsibility.

Explaining about the critical care unit at Pamba in a simple function held here, the hospital’s Senior General Manager T.N. Sekar had informed that lakhs of people travel to Sabarimala during the pilgrim season every year and some of them face health problems due to unaccustomed exertion. Blisters on the feet and diarrhoea due to unsafe food are the common minor complaints while some devotees get serious ailments.