Chennai’s First Comprehensive Geriatric Program

Setting a new benchmark in geriatric healthcare, MGM Healthcare has launched Swayam, Chennai’s first comprehensive, multidisciplinary geriatric programme built on a structured continuity-of-care model with a strong focus on restoring and sustaining quality of life. The programme is supported by a dedicated senior helpline (044-42004222) to assist elderly patients and their families. The programme integrates outpatient services, dedicated in-patient wards including senior-friendly ICUs, and hospital-to-home care through direct visits, remote monitoring, and follow-up services for patients at home or in assisted-living facilities. The programme was inaugurated by Col. K. Prabhakar Hebbar (Retd.), Mrs. Joseph Marita, Branch Head and Mrs. Kirshnaveni, Deputy Manager, Dignity Foundation and in the presence of Dr. Senathi Nanda Kishore, Clinical Director & Senior Consultant & Clinical Lead – Anaesthesiology and Surgical ICU, MGM Healthcare, and Dr. P. Sivaraj, Senior Consultant, Department of Internal Medicine, who heads Swayam. Swayam distinguishes itself from conventional geriatric care by offering structured, assessment-driven services that integrate medical, psychological, functional, nutritional, sensory, dental, and home-based monitoring within one coordinated framework — ensuring clinical cohesion across specialties. The team has expertise in comprehensive geriatric assessment; chronic disease management including diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular risk; polypharmacy review and medication rationalisation; preventive health and risk stratification; memory and cognitive evaluation; rehabilitation support; metabolic and renal disorder management; infection care; functional and mobility assessment; and frailty and fall-risk evaluation. In his comments, Dr. Senathi Nanda Kishore said, “India is ageing rapidly, yet structured geriatric medicine remains underdeveloped. Ageing is often normalised as decline - chronic pain, loneliness, reduced mobility, polypharmacy, and sensory deterioration are accepted as ‘natural’. Swayam challenges this narrative. We are not merely a treatment clinic; we represent a proactive, preventive, and restorative ecosystem for senior wellbeing. We are not managing old age - we are optimising healthy ageing.” Dr. Sivaraj said, “Current geriatric care is often fragmented across specialties - reactive rather than preventive, with limited psychological and social assessment. Medication management is seldom well integrated, and follow-up rarely extends into structured home-based care. In contrast, we offer Chennai’s most structured multidisciplinary geriatric programme, built on a true continuity-of-care model spanning outpatient, inpatient, and home care. The emphasis is on longitudinal monitoring rather than episodic intervention - reframing ageing from inevitable decline to a manageable, optimisable transition”. Swayam follows an appointment-based model, limiting consultations to just five patients per day to ensure comprehensive, unhurried evaluations. Each visit offers multidisciplinary screening under one roof, including psychological assessments for loneliness and depression. The Hospital-to-Home continuity comprises quarterly Mobile Health Services, where a doctor, nurse, and physiotherapist visit patients’ homes for structured monitoring and ongoing care.