# Saving lives in the highest places on earth

By Apollo Hospitals

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Himachal Pradesh is one of India’s northernmost state. ‘Hima’ and ‘Ancha’ means ‘snow’ and ‘lap’ in Sanskrit and this beautiful state lies in the lap of the Himalayas. But communities living in the farthest reaches of Himachal Pradesh struggle to access healthcare and medical emergencies present a unique challenge. There’s a shortage of healthcare professionals, a lack of connectivity, and at 4,267 m above sea level, the terrain is challenging. It is often not safe for people to travel to hospitals, besides it being a journey that takes several hours.Apollo Tele Health Services (ATHS) set out to transform the way healthcare is delivered to these communities. Along with the Government of Himachal Pradesh, they’ve set up telemedicine centres in four key areas, trained specialist staff, and harnessed the power of connectivity to bring virtually specialist medical expertise to thousands of people. This is saving lives every single day.

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## Whether its treating heart attacks, broken bones, or any trauma, ATHS is transforming the way people look at and access healthcare.

And the numbers speak for themselves: 22,727 Tele-Consultations have taken place (as of July 2021) Attended and stabilized over 1,300 tele-emergency cases The centres have achieved a female-male patient ratio of 51:49 – enabling more women to get the healthcare they need More than 4,000 people have enrolled in community outreach programmes offering screening for everything from NCDs to anaemiaAll this means that the wider health of these remote communities is being improved. Diseases can be caught earlier through screening, enabling better outcomes for people. We want to ensure services are available to individuals – so that they are not left behind.

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## It’s hard to draw a picture that illustrates the daily impact of telemedicine in remote communities, but the story of this baby girl and her mother is one powerful example.

In August 2021, a 27-year-old heavily pregnant woman arrived at the clinic in Kaza. Doctors diagnosed a serious condition called placental abruption where the placenta detaches from the uterus. Both the woman and her unborn baby were at risk, so the baby was delivered pre-term by emergency C-section. The mother was haemorrhaging, and doctors were unable to control the bleeding. The ATHS team held an urgent teleconsultation with a leading Urogynecologist at the Apollo Hospital in Chennai. She guided the doctors and the mother’s life was saved. But her baby still had critically low oxygen levels and was taken to critical intensive care.The ATHS team in Kaza consulted with veteran paediatrician Dr Latha Vishwanathan, 4,023 km away in Chennai. She walked them through a life-saving regimen of IV fluids and nutrition via feeding tubes, while using the tele-link to remotely monitor the baby round the clock. Though the child showed signs of getting better, a week later her sugar levels plunged dangerously low. Dr Vishwanathan said the baby needed to be moved to a specialist hospital that was a 12 hour-drive away – where the paediatrician would remain on call throughout the journey. Her specialist advice enabled both the mother and her baby to survive the trauma of the birth and recover.

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## Half of the world’s population does not have access to the healthcare they need. The adoption of digital healthcare has improved equity in delivering healthcare services, enabling access to quality care for communities that have been underserved or marginalized.

Apollo Hospitals, through its remote intervention programmes, is committed to the EDISON Alliance’s 1 Billion Lives Challenge  to provide healthcare services to at least 36 million people across various locations by 2025 – with 16 million lives already impacted (as of July 2021).

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