Three years after its inception, the Sri Sathya Sai Sanjeevni Children’s Hospital has successfully performed more than 400 life-saving heart surgeries on children from Fiji and the Pacific.
Speaking to The Fiji Times, hospital director Dr Krupali Tappoo said this was a milestone for them, but sustaining the free service comes at a high cost.
She said if the operations had been done overseas, the 400 families would have faced a combined bill of about $40 million.
“A surgery like this, if it was to be done overseas, would cost probably over $100,000 so in essence, if you look at the 400 surgeries, which could equate to about $40m if this was done in a hospital outside of Fiji, or done in a commercial model,” Dr Krupali said.
“Nothing is free. There is always a cost to everything, and so definitely, there is a cost to the surgeries that we do here, and we do our best to keep the costs as low as possible.”
She admitted that keeping the hospital running required millions each year and while the Government provides an annual grant, it covers only part of the operating costs.
“We are grateful to the Government for providing us with a grant from last year, but that doesn’t cover all our costs.
“Every year, despite the grant that the Government gives us, we have to raise another $2m to $3m just for the operational costs, and we have to raise a lot of money when we are purchasing any equipment that’s not together with the grant.”
Dr Krupali said hospital expenses include medication, surgical consumables, airfares, accommodation for visiting specialists and maintenance.
“But even then, millions of dollars have been invested in these children and in these surgeries, because there’s the cost of medications, consumables, with the visiting team, their airfares, their accommodations, their meals, their transport.
“So, I would say that as a foundation, we have invested millions and millions of dollars towards this hospital.”
