Towards A Clean Bill Of Health

New Delhi-based Consure Medical’s one-of-its-kind device Qora has the potential to be the Foley catheter of faecal incontinence therapy

- Manu Balachandran

For over five decades, health care providers everywhere have banked on the Foley catheter to drain urine from the bladders of patients who cannot do so normally. It is also used to treat urinary incontinence—a condition marked by excessive urination. The device comprises a tube that is passed through the urethra and into the bladder to drain urine into a bag.

While the catheter has now become a workaday device for medical care givers, a comparable tool in faecal management has eluded medics.

More often than not, nurses or bystanders are forced to change soiled bed sheets by hand, particularly in the case of bedridden patients who are immobilised by medical conditions such as a stroke. On other occasions, patients are forced to spend days on their unclean beds or use adult diapers, which leads to bed sores and cross infections.

Now, a little-known company is revolutionising the field of care giving with its faecal incontinence therapy device. New Delhi-based Consure Medical—the brainchild of Nishith Chasmawala, 37, and Amit Sharma, 34—has been selling its stool management device, Qora, across 50-odd hospitals in India and the US.

Qora is an applicator inserted into the anal cavity to provide a pathway for stool diversion with very little leakage. The stool is diverted to a collection bag before being disposed of. “Stool management is such a ‘yucky’ problem and an assault on the dignity of people,” Amit Sharma, co-founder and chief technology officer at Consure, tells Forbes India. “A lot of times, family members or the women in the family have to do the cleaning. In bedridden patients, faecal contents lead to a 22 percent increase in bed sores. That’s how we came up with a product that is clinically better and reduces the cost for hospitals.”