By SHALENDRA PRASAD

Creating positive vibes and working tirelessly towards achieving goals is resulting in milestone achievements at Fiji’s largest state-of-the-art specialty 130-bed hospital, says its founder and chief executive officer Parvish Kumar.

While addressing elite leaders of the business community and other important stakeholders at the corporate social night and “know your hospital” event at Pacific Specialist Healthcare (PSH) Hospitals in Legalega, Nadi on recently, Mr Kumar said PSH Hospitals is a trendsetter in the medical field and introducing new and innovative medical technologies at a consistent pace in both his Suva and Nadi facilities.

“PSH Hospitals started in a very humble way in 2016 in Suva and our aim and vision was to bring world-class medical services to the country not only for our people but for the entire Pacific community and visitors to our shores,” Mr Kumar said.

“During my academic days, I had the opportunity to travel the world and saw advancements in the medical fields first-hand in countries like Germany, India, Singapore and UAE just to name a few,” Mr Kumar said.

He said upon returning from those respective excursions, he would make submissions to the various stakeholders and ministries on getting such technologies to Fiji but there were always a lot of processes and channels to go through which didn’t get immediate and positive results and response from those on the top of the decision making table.

“That is when I got together with a group of very close friends and told them of my plans to start a specialty hospital with an aim of bringing world-class services to Fiji because I saw our people were being deprived of such services which was available elsewhere in the world and those equipment were not so expensive when compared to saving precious lives,” Mr Kumar said.

He said Fiji has some of the best doctors and nurses one can ask for but they need to be equipped with the right tools to carry out their work.

“In 2016 we started small. The dream was big but to start achieving everything overnight wasn’t possible so I and my hardworking team went step by step and slowly we made our dreams a reality.

“Just two-weeks ago our highly trained team of neurosurgical group led by Dr Alan Biribo achieved another milestone post implementation of an advanced technology by carrying out a complex brain tumor surgery in Suva at a record breaking time of two-hours, removing a very large tumor which normally could take six to eight hours and that too without any complications and we will unveil more information on this achievement soon.

“In November last year, we did what nobody had ever thought of was possible in Nadi by commissioning our multi-million-dollar state-of-the-art cardiology unit and carrying out the first triple graft heart bypass surgery in the jet-set town.

“Last month we carried out a marathon of open-heart surgeries for three consecutive days and the first one was a quadruple graft heart bypass surgery which is a first for Fiji and that too was done with minimum blood loss to the patient and without a drop of blood transfusion because of the patient’s religious beliefs as a member of the Jehovah’s Witnesses congregation.

“On the last day of 2024, we launched the Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) which is a blessing not only for our dive fraternity as it treats bends caused by decompression but also for patients who have wounds that don’t heal on time resulting in amputations.

“We can now significantly reduce the rate of amputations in the country with the commissioning of the Hyperbaric Chamber in-house in Nadi and there is a medical team ready 24/7 and on standby to assist patients anytime of the day or night.”

Mr Kumar says there are many more exciting things happening at PSH Hospitals and details of those advancements will be unveiled as they happen.

“We wish to work very closely with the government to ensure Fiji becomes the hub of medical services in the region and people no longer need to travel overseas for any complex medical needs.”

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• Shalendra Prasad is a freelance photojournalist based in Nadi, Fiji.