Exclusive interview with the managing director of MIOT International, Dr Prithvi Mohandas |08 July 2023
The MIOT’s Instant digital X-Ray service is on the third floor of Espace building
‘MIOT is a trusted name in Seychelles and we want as many people to have access to our services’
After setting up the eye hospital in Seychelles in 2021, MIOT International has opened another service here at the MIOT (Seychelles) Medical at Espace building. The MIOT’s Instant digital X-Ray service is on the third floor of Espace building.
Managing director of MIOT International, Dr Prithvi Mohandas, is currently in Seychelles to oversee the setting up of this new facility and Seychelles NATION made the most of the opportunity to talk to him about the new facility as well as MIOT’s presence in Seychelles.
Seychelles NATION: Dr Mohandas you are back in Seychelles now for the opening of a new facility. Please tell us more about the service?
Dr Mohandas: What we found out is that the cost of things is high in Seychelles and people want to know what is wrong with them (medically). With a four-decade legacy of excellence, we have always endeavoured to protect the people of Seychelles by making the finest care accessible to them. Diagnostics is an essential service and we are elevating it to the next level by launching MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray. The machine comes from Germany and we do not have it in India yet. It is designed for greater precision in the diagnosis of bone, spine, and lung conditions and special investigations of the gastrointestinal tract, kidneys, ureters, and the urinary bladder. The real-time high-resolution imaging allows for faster and accurate treatment decisions.
Seychelles NATION: How will it work and who are the radiologists?
Dr Mohandas: MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray is supported by its unmatched expertise. The radiology technicians performing the X-ray are trained by MIOT International, in Chennai. The results are backed by expert advice from a team of senior radiologists at MIOT International, through tele-radiology. It is your guide towards the right medical care.
Seychelles NATION: What are the new features you are proposing?
Dr Mohandas: MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray has preset exposures for different organs, determined by research and development teams from across the world. It also has a highly sensitive, state-of-the-art detector – a cesium iodide scintillator coupled to a TFT Matrix with amorphous silicon technology. This helps deliver the highest imaging accuracy. It is enhanced by careful patient positioning and radiography techniques by our well-trained team of radiographers. MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray generates images with a pixel size of 139 μm, a spatial resolution of 3.6 lp/mm and digitisation depth of 16 bits for superior clarity and quality. During post-processing, the advanced zoom feature offers an enlarged view upto 15X, while digital manipulation helps produce clearer images of the skull, chest and bones. It ensures that there is absolutely no room for error in capturing details and viewing the images. This enables better treatment decisions.
MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray is highly versatile – it is designed for weight-bearing X-rays, chest X-rays and even imaging while the patient is standing. The X-ray has a wide 17x17” field-of-view, making it the first-of-its-kind in Seychelles. It enables a larger area to be covered in a single exposure.
MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray comes with state-of-the-art patient safety features, including emergency stop buttons and collision sensors. The sturdily designed X-ray table can bear up to 360kgs. Patient safety is our highest priority while delivering accurate results.
Seychelles NATION: What about the radiation level?
Dr Mohandas: MIOT’s Instant Digital X-ray reduces radiation by 50%-60% in comparison to conventional X-ray imaging. Its auto-modulation feature automatically adjusts the level of radiation exposure depending on the thickness and size of the region covered. The DAP (Dose Area Product) meter records the dose per image and the accumulated dose for each patient. The machine’s copper filters further reduce the dose. This combination of cutting-edge features ensures the lowest radiation that is safer for the patient, without compromising on the image quality.
Seychelles NATION: What about the prices and how do patient get an appointment?
Dr Mohandas: I would like to reiterate; this facility is not meant for our regular MIOT patients only. It is a facility that can be used by all. Anyone can call at the clinic to book an appointment and the prices are exactly what you would pay in India. A regular X-Ray cost R200, a barium swallow-gastro costs R2,200; a barium meat-intestinal costs R2,200, a barium enema-tumour costs R2,500 and the kidney stone IVU costs R2,500.
Seychelles NATION: Please tell us about your other services.
Dr Mohandas: We are trying our best to give the best to our clients, but our major issue is the speed of internet connectivity. Back home, in India, everything is digitally connected and we go quite fast. Here, we are having some issues and we are trying to come to terms with that. That is also why we are not expanding so fast. When we first started the eye care, people were complaining about having an appointment after a few weeks, the process was taking a long time.
Other than that, the ease of doing business here is great and there is no corruption in government. We are looking into areas where the Seychellois need. The eye care business is doing well and we have already reached our target when we thought it would take three years.
The eye clinic is being self-sustained and there are some exciting things happening. There are training happening and also follow-ups of patients, taking off the load from the government service.
Seychelles NATION: What about after-care services for patients who went for surgeries in India?
Dr Mohandas: For the last 15 years, we have been doing free clinics here. Every month we do two free clinics here in Seychelles. There are two types of patients coming to our hospital – those sent by the government and private ones. We work very closely with the Ministry of Health here and any patient treated in Chennai, especially if you get a difficult or special disease, every six weeks the patients have a telemedicine call and this has been going on for two years and it is free of charge.
Seychelles NATION: Are Seychellois being trained by MIOT?
Dr Mohandas: We are very keen in training Seychellois and people should understand that we are not in competition with the government but rather the two services complement each other. As the number of diseases increases, the training becomes bigger. We are working to create a curriculum to train people in certain specific field.
Seychelles NATION: Do you have plan to have a proper clinic in Seychelles?
Dr Mohandas: So, everything has to do with making it accessible to Seychellois. Right now, the consultation, the diagnosis at the Seychelles Hospital are free. It is very tough to bring top quality specialists here and make your business efficient. We are trying to think of certain strategies so that even if we bring these specialists here, the price will remain affordable.
The reason why we started MIOT in Seychelles is for people not have to leave the country to go to India. We are trying to solve this right now by giving you the best at an affordable price. We started with eye care and moved to diagnosis and we will go to other things later.
MIOT is a trusted name in Seychelles and we want as many people to have access our services. Our goal is very clear: ‘To give you the best of the best but at the same time to make it affordable’.
Interview by Vidya Gappy
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