KIMS, LivLife set up bariatric care centre

Hyderabad: India's ace badminton player and Olympic silver medalist PV Sindhu has inaugurated KIMS LivLife Center. A leading South Indian healthcare major, KIMS Hospitals and South India's first International Centre of Excellence for Bariatric and Metabolic Surgery, LivLife Hospitals, announced that they entered into an agreement to work as a single force in the field of bariatric and metabolic surgeries through KIMS and LivLife network, bringing together two South Indian renowned institutions. This collaboration is the first of its kind to offer complex bariatric care directly to all patients of all socio-economic levels.

There has been a dramatic increase of obesity in India in past couple of decades. With this collaboration of KIMS and LivLife, the hospitals will provide high-valued bariatric care to people of all socio-economic levels. KIMS LivLife Centre collaboration is agreed to be in line with vision and commitment of 'Passion For Healing.' Under the agreement, both the hospitals together will provide latest technological advances like robotic surgeries, endoscopic bariatric surgical procedures to patients at affordable prices.

Speaking on the occasion, Dr Bhaskar Rao, MD and CEO, KIMS Hospitals, said, "LivLife Hospitals is renowned for their commitment in providing high-quality patient outcomes, as are we. Teamwork in providing affordable healthcare is the next phase in treating patients. We think this is another way to combine our individual potential for better patient care. Together, our goal is to develop and provide constant high-quality treatment while the innovations in the field are still going on, which will benefit patients and their families. The collaboration between our organisations offers access to high quality, cost-effective care to patients who need the most complex obesity care."

Dr NandaKishore D, Clinical Director & Chief Surgeon-Obesity & Diabetes Surgery, KIMS-LivLife Centre, said, "There is an increasing demand for value in the healthcare marketplace. So, we have partnered with another renowned institution such as KIMS to provide a way for more patients from across the nation to access world-class specialised care. We aim at expansion of bariatric surgery across India and abroad under the banner of KIMS–Livlife Centre. We plan to create a comprehensive bariatric surgery division, with multiple centers of excellence, with group of well-trained surgeons, to provide safe and effective services to patients and also offer best training programs for the upcoming surgeons."

In India, the incidence of obesity is around 9%. But in a cross-sectional view, most of the obesity is in urban India. Several lakhs of people are suffering from obesity and its consequences like diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol levels, joint related issues, infertility, heart diseases, strokes and certain cancers. However, only about 16,000 surgeries were performed in India during last year.

Although, each year, this number is growing, it is still a drop in the ocean. The reasons for people not availing of such services are fear, high costs and lack of awareness. Few insurance companies have started providing obesity surgery-related insurance policies, while many are yet to. In comparison, a few lakhs of such surgeries were performed in USA as there is proper awareness and support from insurance companies.