COVID-19: St John’s Hospital Takes Lead in Serving the Underserved

By Verghese V Joseph –

The newly constructed and fully-equipped St. John’s Hospital’s Covid Care Centre was inaugurated and blessed by His Grace Most Rev. (Dr.) Peter Machado, Archbishop of Bangalore on Monday (August 17, 2020). The adjacent newly-established CT Scan and MRI Scan Units were also blessed by the Archbishop.

With the establishment of this comprehensive facility consisting of 48 isolation beds, a 24-bed ITU and a 24-bed ICU, St. John’s Hospital has taken the lead in enhancing critical care services in the hospital – the dearth of which is evident across all hospitals in the city.

Earlier, St. John’s had set up the first Fever Clinic in the City, a dedicated COVID ER, and set aside about 700 beds for care of COVID-19 patients, including 38 ICU beds for the severely ill. Despite the difficult financial situation faced by the hospital due to a significant drop in footfalls and occupancy in recent months, the institution has committed to more than 500 beds to the Government of Karnataka and the Bruhut Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

By the end of July 2020, just 5 months since the first case surfaced in Bangalore, St. John’s Hospital had screened more than 5,000 patients in the fever clinic, provided crisis care to more than 2,000 patients in the Emergency Department, treated more than 600 patients in the wards and taken care of more than 500 critically ill patients in the ICUs.

“Serving the underserved – has been the foremost objective of St. John’s,” said Rev. Fr. Paul Parathazham, Director of the St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, “not just underserved, COVID-19 patients are today being stigmatized, ostracized, and even physically attacked.  So, true to our calling to serve the underprivileged, St. John’s has risen to the challenge of providing affordable health care to the COVID patients”.  Additionally, St. John’s has given more than Rs 5-crore worth of free treatment since March 2020.

No other private hospital in Bangalore has the kind of COVID-19 Care facilities that St. John’s offers today. This facility is located away from the main hospital while at the same time being connected to it – ensuring that non-COVID-19 patients can access the Out-Patient area, laboratory services and pharmacy with reasonable assurance of not coming into contact with the infected patients.

“It is the unstinted commitment of our staff – the doctors, the nurses, nursing aides and all other staff from ancillary departments – that has given us the courage to undertake such a significant expansion,” says Dr. George D’Souza, Dean of St. John’s Medical College. “Our staff have worked selflessly for long hours and at great personal risk. In addition to affecting us monetarily, some of the staff have suffered the infection too”.

Dr. Bobby Joseph, Vice Dean – Community Outreach says, “It is the support of donors, both big and small who have made this possible. The Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives has supported the establishment of the ICU and Titan Company Limited has funded the 48-bed Isolation Ward. Numerous other donors – individuals, companies, foundations – have contributed significant amounts in cash and kind to support the COVID-19 Care support that St. John’s is providing”.

For any further information, including ways to support the work that St. John’s Hospital does, please get in touch with Dr. Bobby Joseph at [email protected]