By Jose Pinto Stephen,
New York, 29 May 2015: M.S. Faizal Khan had the privilege to be one of the panellists in the ‘Sustainable Energy For All Forum’ conference in the United Nations headquarters in New York. Khan is pro-Chancellor of Noorul Islam University in Tamil Nadu and Managing Director of NIMS Medicity Kerala. NIMS Hospital and Research Foundation is in the attention of the international media because of its Renewable Energy Cath Laboratory in its facilities. It is the first Renewable Energy Cath Laboratory in Asia.
Recently a high-level delegation from United Nations, under the leadership of Kandeh K Yumkella visited NIMS Medicity in Thiruvananthapuram and studied about this project. Then Faizal Khan was invited to attend the UN Conference and he was given the chance to talk to the participants about this initiative.
At the Conference he was well recognized and accepted by the fellow participants. As per Faizal Khan, the mission of NIMS Medicity can be described as follows:
(1) Adapting renewable sources of energy for health care.
(2) Evolving simple integrated solutions for the utilization of alternative energy sources like Solar, Wind and Biogas in healthcare.
(3) Greening Healthcare activities by deploying renewable sources of energy.
The power shortage in the State of Kerala was the main reason why NIMS Medicity decided to adapt this technology in their healthcare facility. Hopefully other companies also will adapt this method in their facilities.
MS Faizal Khan, MD of NIMS Medicity, Kerala, (3rd from left) at a UN conference in New York
The challenges faced by the Healthcare facilities in Kerala were:
(1) Grid Power Interruptions – frequent in rural areas – make ‘critical medical care’ highly vulnerable and risky.
(2) The poor quality of power supply – lack of it when badly needed, improper voltage and frequency dips etc – reduces the confidence of patients to check-in in an emergency and impacts negatively on the healthcare service provider.
(3) The vagaries of power supply, very common in rural hospitals, damage costly critical care equipment at unexpected moments, virtually disarming the doctor.
The technology adapted by NIMS is the DC power generated by solar panels.
Inverted to AC in Synchronous mode and directly interfaced with grid power.
The technical guidance for conceptualizing and designing the system provided by Dr G Madhavan Nair, world renowned scientist and former chairman of Indian Space Research Organization.
The outcomes of this initiative are:
(1) Adequate power supply for healthcare in place.
(2) Emergency needs attended to without depending on the grid.
(3) The impact of the “Reliable Power” commended highly by the patients, public and the government.
(4) Brought Medical, Engineering and Management Professionals together to study and solve crippling energy problems.
(5) NIMS got confidence to scale up.
Those who want to know more about this initiative can visit the following websites:
www.nimshospital.com
www.niuniv.com
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Jose Pinto Stephen, originally from Kerala, is a freelance journalist based in New Jersey. He can be contacted at [email protected].
