DOCTOR DONATES FUNDS RAISED TO TREAT DAUGHTER

The Statesman (India)
March 27, 2005

Statesman News Service KOLKATA, March 26. – It was a day of remembrance
for Dr Swati Wohra, as she donated Rs 10 lakh to the Rabindranath
Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences for the proposed
cancer hospital in the city. The hospital is the pet project of Dr Devi
Shetty, the renowned cardiologist. Dr Wohra’s 15-year-old daughter,
Siddhi, died in July 2004 just before she was to be flown to the USA
for a stem cell or bone-marrow transplant.

Siddhi’s parents had just about managed to gather the funds needed
for the transplant. Dr Wohra handed part of the money collected
for her daughter to officials of the Institute today. Speaking
through a teleconferencing system from Bangalore, Dr Devi Shetty, the
institute’s founder said the state government had identified 20 acres
of land over Eastern Metropolitan Bypass for the proposed 500-bed
state-of-the-art cancer hospital. The hospital will see completion
within one or two years along with the bone marrow transplant centre,
he said. The proposed hospital will be set up next to the institute.
Dr Shetty said because of a delay in the construction of the proposed
hospital, the bone marrow transplant centre will come up shortly at
the Institute’s Armenian Church Trauma Centre. Later it will be shifted
to the hospital. ‘There are few centres for bone marrow transplant in
the country. Thalassaemia patients and others needing the transplant
can now avail of it by paying Rs 2 to 3 lakh. The hospital will be
the first of its kind in Eastern India,’ Mr Udayan Lahiry CEO of the
Institute said.