A new Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory System was inaugurated in the Cardiac unit at Southern Railway Headquarters Hospital, Perambur, Chennai by Dr. P.S. Prasad, Director General / Railway Health Services / Railway Board / New Delhi, in the presence of Shri Rakesh Misra, General Manager, Southern Railway. Dr. R.P. Buden, Chief Medical Director, Southern Railway and Dr. Prasanna Kumar, Medical Director, Southern Railway Headquarters Hospital, Chennai.
The new cardiac cath lab is a state of the art system with advanced technological features and was purchased at a cost of Rs.3.88 crores.
The Cardiac Unit at Railway Hospital, Perambur was started in 1978 and was the brainchild of Dr. T.J. Cherian. Many leading Cardiologists and Cardiac Surgeons have spen the formative years of their career at this centre. Currently the unit performs around 2500 Cath Lab procedures and around 1000 Cardiac Surgery procedures per year. This centre is an All India referral centre for Cardiology and Cardiovascular Surgery for the Indian Railways and also treats patients who are not from the Railways. About one in four of the Cath Lab procedures are interventional therapeutic procedures ranging from paediatric interventions to complex valve, coronary and peripheral vascular interventions. Advanced pace maker and device implantations are also done. All this has been done within the Railway set up which has resulted in a significant cost saving for the organisation and the procedures are done only for clear clinical indications and in agreement with current accepted treatment guidelines thereby promoting patient safety as well as avoiding unnecessary costs. The Cardiac Unit is currently headed by Dr. Sriram Rajagopal.