Kolkata:Embracing the rapidly growing concept of medical tourism in the country, a health facility here has come up with a novel comprehensive package that includes airport drop and lift as also city sightseeing offers for outstation patients and their attendants.
The KKM Lap laser Surgical Center (KKMLLSC), Kolkata’s first surgical daycare centre that opened its doors on Sunday, has devised the three-day package aiming to ensure a hassle-free trip for international patients from neighbouring nations like Bangladesh and Bhutan and those from states such as Jharkhand, Bihar and Tripura.
As per a mid-2020 estimate, India’s medical tourism sector is worth USD 5-6 billion. After a period of lull during the pandemic-hit years, the sector has resumed its northward growth trajectory.
“The package includes doctor’s consultation, investigation, and surgical treatment on day care basis, airport drop and lift, hotel stay, and complimentary breakfast. Local sightseeing and shopping may be arranged on demand,” said Gynaecologist Kajari Mukherjee, co-owner of (KKMLLSC), which also doubles up as Eastern India’s only facility for international and national LASER Proctology Training programme.
A brainchild of renowned LASER surgeon Dr Kalyan Kar and Mukherjee, the centre aims to provide the most advanced technology for minimally invasive surgical procedures – LASER, Laparoscopy, Hysteroscopy, Microwave – for treating a host of problems, including pile, fissure, fistula, Varicose Vein, gall bladder, ovarian cyst and menstrual disorders.
“Another salient feature would be aesthetic gynaecology and intimate health clinic for the modern woman, who is concerned about the health and beauty of her intimate body parts,” said Dr Mukherjee, who has been associated with the leading hospitals of the city close to 20 years.
Located close to the Jyotirindra Nandi station of the under-construction New Garia-Airport Metro railway line and the bustling Eastern Metropolitan Bypass, the centre is equipped with an ultra-modern operation theatre and ensures a COVID-safe environment with disposable and biodegradable bedsheets, towels, slippers, utensils and cutlery for patients.
According to Bengali actor Abir Chatterjee, who graced the grand opening, Abir Chatterjee, daycare procedures are best suited to the current societal situation where nuclear families are the order of the day.
“Patients can take admission in the morning, undergo surgery in the daytime, get discharged in the evening, and go back to normal life and work within a short period,” said the actor.
Due to the short hospital stay, expenses are much less and there is no risk of hospital-acquired infection, said Dr Kar, regarded as a pioneer of LASER proctology (the branch of medicine concerned with the anus and rectum) surgery.
Over the past few years, proctology surgeons from 15 countries spread across three continents – Asia, Europe and Africa – have come down to Kolkata to learn the nuances of LASER proctology surgery from Dr Kar, who has 30-plus years of professional experience.
“It is our dream to develop the centre into a global seat of research and training on LASER proctology in the coming years,” he said.
Another uniqueness lies in that the centre would be the first in eastern India to employ the brand-new technology of Microwave Ablation, for procedures like destroying breast lumps and Thyroid Nodules, using heat generated by Microwave energy. Kar travelled to Turkey recently to learn the technology.
“These procedures, mostly painless, can be done in minutes. No scar is left. Cosmetically, the results are excellent,” Dr Mukherjee said.
