Inaugurating the first World Congress of Interventional Cardiology today, he said the city has some of the best medical institutions and medical colleges and people come from abroad to take treatment. This conference, he said, will be highly useful in teaching the latest technology to consultants from various parts of India.

However, he said it is not just poverty and illiteracy that are responsible for a large population not having access to health care. There is a major factor of the urban-rural divide that makes it difficult for the health delivery technique to function, he said. About 70 per cent of the population lives in seven lakh villages, and of these, about six lakh villages do not have the infrastructure to sustain a health care system, he said.

Another factor is that this ruralpopulation does not think modern medicine is good for them and even today depends on traditional ayurveda for treatment, Alexander said. But the villages do not even have qualified ayurveda practitioners, he said.

Earlier, he inaugurated the programme by the lighting of the lamp. Around 1,000 delegates are taking part in this congress, which has been sponsored by the Heart Foundation of India and co-sponsored by Bombay Hospital and Lilavati Hospital. Various advancements in the field of interventional cardiology will be discussed, and delegates will get a chance to watch live cases through satellite transmission.

Chairman of the scientific committee, Dr B K Goyal, said the field of interventional cardiology is quite developed in India, and there are around 60 centres performing various procedures. The popularity and acceptance of this technique is such that the number of angioplasties will significantly increase in the next few years, he added.

According to Dr Lekha Pathak, professor and head ofcardiology, JJ Hospital, the top cardiologists will perform some sophisticated procedures live and delgates can watch and ask questions while the operation is on. About 40-45 patients are likely to benefit by these procedures during the congress, and the talks delivered will also be telecast to other cities, she said.

Also present on the occasion were Ramrao Adik, former deputy chief minister, Dr Ashwin Mehta, director of cardiology, Jaslok Hospital, and Dr Samuel Mathew, well-known cardiologist.

New cathlab for Bombay Hospital

The cardiac wing of Bombay Hospital got a facelift today with the inauguration of a state-of-the-art cathlab by municipal commissioner K Nalinakshan. The new angiography equipment for cardiac catheterisation installed in the hospital's R D Birla International Cardiac Centre will give doctors the much-needed extra time to save a patient's life.

Noted cardiologist Dr B K Goyal said the new system will speed up diagnosis and subsequent treatment by making patient dataavailable instantly. Cardiac catheterisation primarily has to do with angiography and angioplasty. The in-built digital imaging sytems and on-line evaluation will give cardiologists at the hospital an edge over their counterparts.

Introduced for the larger cause of patient welfare, the system is controlled by an ``intelligent computer.'' A patient hooked up to this system will have the doctor's attention constantly because all the technicalities will be taken care of by the computer.