The Army Southern Command’s Military Hospital – Cardio Thoracic Centre (MH-CTC) in the city will soon have modern facilities for carrying out heart and lung transplantation processes.

"We are waiting for the state government’s clearance of our proposals for these two facilities," MHCTC’s officiating commandant Brigadier S K Jatana told reporters on the sidelines of a media visit to the centre on Monday. "The two new facilities are expected to come up within next few months," he added.

Earlier at the Command Hospital, Pune, Major General L S Vohra, who heads the Southern Command’s medical and healthcare services, said that a proposal for modernisation of 16 hospitals located in the command zone was at an advanced stage of approval with the Union ministry of finance. Automation of hospitals is also being taken up in a phased manner, he said.

The Southern Command is the oldest and largest command of the Indian armed forces covering almost 42% of the country’s land. "The collective bed strength of the 16 hospitals is 3,199, while the over-estimated cost for the modernisation of these hospitals is Rs 2233.43 crore," Vohra said.

Four of these hospitals are located in Maharashtra and they are in Aurangabad (49-bed); Kamptee (149); Ahmednagar (182) and Devlali (280). The other places under the command zone are Udaipur, Cannanore, Dhrangadhara, Belgaum, Babina, Sagar, Wellington, Gwalior, Nasirabad, Jhansi, Ahmedabad and Secunderabad. In fact, the hospitals in Ahmedabad and Secunderabad are among the biggest with 345 and 490 bed strength, respectively.

The Command Hospital, Pune, is the largest superspecialty centre of the armed forces and was set up in 1825 during the pre-Independence era. With time, this hospital has evolved and currently provides super-specialty services in the field of cardiology, gastroenterology, neurology, oncology, endocrinology, immunology, hematology, rheumatology, etc and is a recognized renal transplantation centre. All specialties work in sync with each other to provide holistic service and care to the patients. The hospital also provides postgraduate and DNB courses in several subjects.

The MH-CTC is a superspecialty hospital offering facilities in the field of cardiology, cardio-thoracic and vascular surgery and respiratory Medicine. The hospital is a premiere institute performing all types of major cardiac surgeries and interventional procedures including valve replacements and repairs, complex congenital cardiac condition repairs, medical thoracoscopy and bronchoscopies.