Geriatric centre to come up at St John’s

BENGALURU: St John’s National Academy of Health Sciences (SJNAHS) is looking to establish ‘St John’s Geriatric Care Centre’ -- a massive facility for comprehensive care, training and research in aging and geriatrics, in 2023, and is also training healthcare assistants for it.

The first batch of Health Care Assistance Course -- a three-month residential course for 15 students with a minimum educational qualification of Class 10 -- has commenced. The course will train candidates in the skills of caring for the sick, disabled and elderly, for the geriatric centre that the hospital is looking to open in 2023. The facility will include day care, short stay care, long term care (beyond 4-6 weeks) and hospice or end-of-life care (those with terminal illness who need palliative care), he added.

For now, candidates will be absorbed in the hospital, and when the geriatric centre starts, they will be moved there, said Dr Pretesh R Kiran, Associate Professor, Community Health, SJNAHS, and Joint Coordinator, Senior Citizen Health Service. Keeping in mind financial background, the course is free of cost. However, sponsorships of Rs 12,000 per candidate are being sought for tuitions, food and accommodation for the three-month course, said Dr Pretesh.

Dr Paul Parathazham, Director, SJNAHS, told The New Indian Express that the facility will be located on the St John’s Medical College Hospital campus on Sarjapur Road. 

Public philanthropy 
Meanwhile, funds for the Rs 40-crore project were being raised through public philanthropy since August 2020. Dr Parathazham said that the hospital was earlier planned to be a G+3 building, but the facility was fit to be extended to G+6 (seven storeys) with more than 125 beds and a mix of common/general wards and private facilities, to provide elder care to those from all strata of society.