Friday 29 October 2010

Meet the SCI Team

I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to some of the hidden members of the SCI team. Clients who come to Delhi know me, Dr. Shivani, as well as much loved Client Relationship Manager, (Travel &Tourism) Shilpi Sharma. Some clients may meet part of our Administrative team ( including our International Client Managers), but we are much bigger that this small handful of people.

We, the SCI Team are made up of over 45 members of staff working to provide a wrap around surrogacy service, as a single team to fulfill the dreams of our clients to become parents. The majority of our team are based in Delhi, although we have International Client Managers based in Australia and America. We are dedicated to providing the highest level of care to our donors, surrogates, clients and their most treasured babies.

This week we have bid farewell to one of our old team member – Laxmi and have welcomed several new staff.

I would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to the wider team, most of whom you will probably never meet, who are crucial in the care of you, our clients, your egg donor, your surrogate(and their extended families) and your babies. The majority of these people work tirelessly in the background providing a high caliber of service that enables all of us at SCI to make your dreams of having a baby come to fruition.

Here are some of the staff who work in the back ground that make up part of the SCI team:-
1) Mr. Saurabh Kumar

Title: Proprietor, FCI.
Role: Mr. Kumar heads a team who is primarily responsible for the recruitment of surrogate mothers & egg donors. Mr. Kumar offers support and ensures that both surrogates and egg donors have all their needs met during the initial stages of treatment and after treatment has ceased. Mr. Kumar is the first point of contact for potential egg donors and surrogates and begins the screening process by explaining the process and ensuring that both donors and surrogates ( and their husbands’) understand what is required.

2) Dr. Ajay Sinha
Title : MD/ Physician
Role: Dr. Ajay Sinha evaluates all the surrogates & egg donors for Medical Fitness eprior to being accepted onto the program.

3) Dr. Atul Verma

Title: Clinical Psychologist
Role: Dr. Atul evaluates all the surrogates & donors prior to being accepted onto the program and provides psychological counselling as required. Dr. Atul spends a considerable amount of time ensuring that all parties understand the process and what is required and that both the surrogate and egg donor are able to give informed consent to proceed. Time is also spend with the surrogates’ husband to ensure that he is able to provide support to his wife during this process. Counselling is available to egg donors, surrogates and their husbands as needed.


4) Dr. Aarti & Dr. Malik

Title: OB/ GYN
Role: Dr. Aarti ( photo) & Dr. Malik work with me ( Dr. Shivani) at SCI as Senior Medical Officers reviewing of all the ongoing pregnancies. All ongoing pregnancies are reviewed formally on a fortnightly basis,although we meet daily with the wider team to review all cases.

5) Dr. Anil Malik

Title: Senior Surgeon
Role: Dr. Anil undertakes any surgical treatment, if required for the surrogates.

6) Dr. Usha Modi


Role: Dr. Modi undertakes all the pathology work and blood tests/ cultures. For our clients, Dr. Modi has one of the most important roles, her tests confirm that your surrogate is pregnant.

7) Dr. Dhir :

Title: Chief Anesthetist
Role: Those of you who choose to self cycle in Delhi will meet Dr. Dhir, who has the important task of providing anaesthetisia for all of our IVF cases / operative deliveries

8) Nurse Jija :

Profile : Nurse Jija is one of our IVF Nurses; she coordinates daily Injection & medication to all our Donors & Surrogates currently under treatment.

9) Rohan :

Title: Surrogate Support & Advocate
Role: Rohan sole role is to provide support and assistance to any surrogate who is admitted into hospital. No surrogate is ever left alone or isolated. Rohan will often communicate with the surrogate’s extended family and ensure that the surrogates concerns and wishes are addressed and understood by treating staff.

10) Jai Singh:

Title: landlord of Surrogate Housing
Role: Mr. Singh is the landlord of the Surrogate home. He is responsible for maintenance and security of all apartments and communal space.
At SCI, we do not believe that surrogates should be separated from their immediate families, nor do we believe in dormitories for accommodation. This is backed by research which tells us that surrogates have poorer health outcomes, increased anxiety and greater recovery times if separated from their immediate family.
Mr. Singh provides us with spacious Studio Apartments that are fully furnished; have cooling to cope with the Delhi heat as well as fridges and cable televisions in each apartment, the cost of which is met by IP’s.
Mr. Singh is currently looking to expand the Surrogate home from 50 to 100 apartments to meet our growing needs.

11) Poornima &Putul :

Putul

Poornima
Title: Chief Social Workers
Role : Poornima &Putul work in close association and manage a team of twenty social workers/support workers/cleaners. Their teams meet with surrogates and their families on a daily basis at the surrogate housing. They look after the daily up-keep of the studio apartments and ensure that the surrogate and their families have all their needs met. Fresh Food, drinkables and supplements are provided every second day for all in the apartment. If a surrogate chooses to have her children with her (often the case for younger children) then a second family member must be available to provide care.

In the past this has meant that the social workers have also assisted in facilitating the medical care and treatment of extended family members staying at the apartments, organised enrolment, uniforms and school runs for school aged children and assisted with on site child care, organised transport for extended families to visit and facilitated recreational activities.

The social workers’ work with the nurse to ensure that all meds are taken and the broader team to ensure that surrogates attend all appointments etc.
The Social Workers will monitor the well being of a surrogate on a daily basis and if there are any concerns then these are discussed with Dr. Shivani immediately.

12) Mr. S.K. Singh

Title: Purchasing Officer for SCI
Role : Mr. Singh ensures that we have all the medications required for the Surrogates and Donors on daily basis, as well as being responsible for all purchasing for the SCI team.

13) Parul Ojha

Title: Admin &Legal Manager
Role: Parul primarily role is in administration. Parul coordinates all the legal paper with SCI lawyer & also liaises with clients and ensures their queries are answered promptly.

14) Ritu Singh :

Title: Chief Admin Coordinator
Role: Ritu prepares and updates all our Donor & Surrogate profiles that are sent out to our IP’s through our International Client Managers. Ritu co-ordinates my diary and most importantly for IP’s ( works with Chandan) to books their surrogates for scans and sends copies to IP’s in a timely manner . If an IP has any questions regarding scans or any planned treatments, Ritu ensures that these questions are answered promptly.

15) Neha Yadav

Title: Chief of Secretarial Staff
Role : Neha role is to liaise with clients before IVF and during the pregnancy so that all are aware of ‘when’ and ‘where’. Most importantly for IP’s, Neha co-ordinates all the baby pick-up documentation for when it is time for your baby to come home.

16) Amit Kumar

Title: Accounts ManagerRole: Amit looks after day to day accounts of SCI.

17) Chandan Kumar :

Role: Chandan works with Ritu, Poornima, Putul, our doctors, social workers and drivers and the rest of the team to assist in coordinating daily appointments of the Surrogates & Donors with the Doctors for Scanning & Blood Tests.

18) Transport / Travel Assistants:

Role: We place the highest priority on the care of all our surrogates. This department looks after the daily transport needs of all the Surrogates & Donors. Through this team we are able to provide transport 24*7 to all our surrogates who only travel in SCI cars.

19) Pawan / Bhavani/ Rohit : SCI Office assistants


Role: As with any team, you need people who will jump in and do all the odd jobs that are required -These men do this for the SCI Team.

Sunday 17 October 2010

ISO Accreditation

Anyone in Health Care understands both the importance and the challenges of going through a Quality Management Systems ( QMS)registration and auditing process and all that goes with it;including having a culture of continuous quality improvement that is audited internally and externally.

It is with great delight that I share with you that we have been accredited with ISO for the maximum time period of 3 years.It is a commitment that we at SCI have made to continue to meet international standards of practice & care and that we are open to the scrutiny of the accrediting body. While we are all very excited about this as a service, the reality is that we will continue to provide the same high quality service & care to our clients, with no real observable change.

An ISO certificate is not a once-and-for-all award, but must be renewed at regular intervals recommended by the certification body, usually around three years. There are no grades of competence: either a company is certified (meaning that it is committed to the method and model of quality management described in the standard), or it is not




(A note this is hot off the mail... and the final certificate will be here in 2 -3 weeks)

Tuesday 5 October 2010

Our Experiences, thoughts from a new family

Hi Dr Shivani



Hope you are well. We are doing just fine.



We left India Friday morning and came back to our house yesterday. At our house we had a party with our families and everyone were so happy that we finally made it back home.



Just wanted to share some of our experience and how we felt through the surrogacyjourney.



First a BIG thank you for all your help and support. You have been great. You are always positive, informative and you are answering our questions so quickly. We are very satisfied with both how you handle us IP´s and how you seem to handle the surrogates. The information about eggdonors and surrogates weren´t much but enough. The information you have sent throughout the pregnancy has been great. Always on time and for the most easy for us (dummies) to understand. Continue as now and you will have a long, good career. Your are wonderful!



During our visit in India we met Shilpi a lot and we adore her. She has been so wonderful to be with and she has helped us a lot. She is easy to talk to and she is eager to help and she wants everybody to feel comfortable. During Roberts visit at the hospital she was there many times, helping us and supported us. She is GREAT, hold on to her!



Alwina is doing just fine. Right now she has just been eating and lying in her bed getting some rest. She sleeps a lot and eats a lot.



Photos will come in another letter.



Thank you and hugs to your all!