Future Plans

Friends of Shanta Bhawan follows the mentality of continued learning, improvements, and growth. As a non-profit and non-governmental organization, we continually seek ways to better our services and hence improve our patients’ experience. Below are multiple plans we have in place to achieve this.

Infrastructure

At present, our clinic works out of a rented house that does not have direct road access. Since it is a house, the interior layout is not optimal for a medical clinic. In the future, we hope to establish FSB in its own building. Having our own infrastructure is key to achieving stability as it would bring reassurance of owning our own property, and investments towards building maintenance / improvements would be long-lasting. Further, this would create a more welcoming space for patients and improve the efficiency of the clinic by permitting us to introduce new departments and programs. Our goal is to be able to accommodate a more vast surgical center, a birthing ward, a dental and ophthalmology clinic, and more comfortable waiting areas as soon as funds are available.

PROMOTION OF PEDIATRIC UNIT

With the recent development of our pediatric unit sponsored by Sahakarini, we are better able to care for the children that serve as a large proportion of FSB’s client base. The hire of our first pediatrician in 2018 allows for more comprehensive and specialized services for children up to the age of 18, and the immunization program administered by our nurses ensures that infants receive proper vaccinations. With this unit being relatively new to our clinic, we hope to more extensively promote these services by providing more specialized treatment of different pediatric health issues. For example, our new ultrasound machine has the ability to diagnose different heart conditions. We would like to hire a pediatrician trained in administering and interpreting echocardiograms in order to treat a larger youth population.

Advancement of Obstetric and Gynecology Services

Some of FSB’s most widely-used services include antenatal and postnatal care. Our qualified doctors and nurses provide routine check-ups during the pregnancy and postpartum periods, for both the mother and child. In addition, our medical officer specializing in women’s health provides gynecological treatment to our female patients. The addition of a new ultrasound machine in March 2019 allows our trained general practitioner to interpret higher quality images and thus make more accurate diagnoses. The ability to administer Doppler tests and echochardiogram tests with this machine further allows our doctors to better monitor the health of our patients.

In the upcoming five years, we would like to establish a birthing ward at our clinic. This would allow expecting mothers to receive treatment from our healthcare personnel throughout the entire course of the birthing cycle, from conception to antenatal care, to delivery, to postnatal care. This would reduce the complications of sending pregnant women to other birthing centers, and would provide our patients with the comfort and familiarity of seeing the same doctor throughout the pregnancy process. With this vision, we would need to implement a 24-hour emergency unit with adequate space, hire additional staff such as a gynecologist and anesthesiologist, and purchase new equipment to ensure safe deliveries.

Ambulatory Surgery

At present, our clinic does not have the healthcare personnel qualified, or the equipment and space to perform minor surgeries. In the future, we would like to have the space and qualified personnel to perform minor surgeries for conditions such as hydroceles, phimoses, hernias, hemorrhoids, and fractures / dislocations not requiring overnight hospital stays. Ideally, we would designate certain days of the week for such procedures, in which a surgeon would be called in to perform the surgeries. The introduction of an ambulatory surgery department would follow the relocation of our clinic to more permanent infrastructure, a goal we hope to achieve as soon as funds are available.

Dental and Ophthalmology Clinic

A number of patients in the surrounding communities of FSB would benefit from dental and ophthalmologic services. The implementation of such a unit would require additional space, equipment, and healthcare professionals. Our current building does not have the space to host such facilities, nor can our finances support these additions at this point in time. With the continued growth and success of our organization, we hope to reach financial stability in order to fund these dental and ophthalmology services.

Capacity Building

In order to thrive and serve our community, our clinic needs to continue to expand our services, hire more specialized practitioners, introduce new equipment, and stay up to date with the latest technology. At present, we would like to recruit a couple more nurses to assist our doctors and patients. We also hope to replace our current X-ray machine and purchase new biochemistry and immunoassay analyzers for our lab. These additions would allow us to provide more accurate testing for our patients and reduce the costs of some services like thyroid testing.