A first of its kind in India, the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh, has launched an amputee clinic, Director Jagat Ram said on Tuesday. Formally inaugurated on Monday, the clinic has been set up to improve amputation patient care by providing a collection of services under one roof and with significant coordination.

Lauding the initiative, the Director said its basic intent is to unify all diverse sections in the hospital with some upgrades where needed, to provide appropriate management to amputees to guide them in their path to rehabilitation in society. He also ensured that some modalities would be worked out under the initiative to extend financial support for the medical as well as rehabilitation of the deserving and destitute amputees.

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Orthopaedics Department Head, M.S. Dhillon, who spearheaded the initiative, said: "This is the first-of-its-kind clinic in the country and no such clinic exists elsewhere. Over the last few years, it has been our endeavor to provide comprehensive care to post-trauma amputees, with various aspects of multidisciplinary care.

"We have combined all the specialties that help in patient care and rehab under one roof, we have now formalized this as PGI amputee clinic comprising specialists from various departments that are, orthopedics, PMR (physical and medical rehabilitation), occupational physiotherapy, prosthetists, psychologists, and nursing departments, who had already been providing care but as individual entities."

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It is a concept to provide holistic care to patients with amputation, Dhillon added. It involves evaluation, resuscitation, and treatment after the initial event (usually trauma), followed by appropriate planning and surgical interventions.

"We will also run amputee schools on the basis of the successful knee school being run at PGI where we propose to get amputees together to interact with each other and get collective counseling and understand issues faced by other similar cases," Dhillon said. (IANS)