Dayanand Medical College & Hospital

Heart Operation of Children from Pakistan at Ludhiana

Heart Operation of Children from Pakistan at Ludhiana

Humanity has NO Borders

Introduction:

Hero DMC Heart Institute (HDHI) is cardiac unit of Dayanand Medical College and Hospital (DMCH). DMCH was started in yr. 1964 and in 2001, HDHI was started as cardiac unit. Since 2001, HDHI has been progressing with a steady pace and today we are proud to say that we have been doing more than 1000 cardiac surgical operations and more than 1500 angioplasties in a year which makes HDHI as one of the major health care provider in North India. The main advantage is an attached medical college with cardiac centre through which all medical services are provided to patients under one roof.

It is a proud moment for us to inform that in an endeavour to extend the medical services to people; we have gone beyond state borders and now beyond international borders and have operated two babies from Pakistan. The details of these are given below. HDHI is offering complete cardiac services to public especially adult coronary bypass, valve repair/replacement and congenital heart diseases. We are one of the most active participants of National Rural Health Mission programme for congenital heart disease surgery and by now have operated more than 450 children from all across Punjab and also from neighbouring states.

Operating over patients from Pakistan:

Recently one of our doctor visited Pakistan and during his visit, we came to know that a lot of children are there who are suffering from congenital heart disease. As the paediatric cardiac surgery is not very well developed in Pakistan, many poor patients are deprived of health care. The rotary group in Pakistan contacted us to help these small children and sent medical reports of few to us. After discussing case to case by our hospital cardiologists, cardiac surgeons and cardiac anaesthesiologists, we invited two children from the list of cases sent to us.

First patient Baby Ansharah Batool,(2yr 4 month old) her parents Md. Imran Kalim and Mrs. Saima Imran, a resident of Karachi, Pakistan; along with her grand mother Rafia Sultana came to India on 21.06.2011. They were received at Wagah Border by our hospital staff and Rotary group at Amritsar. Baby Ansharah had a hole in the heart which was diagnosed as Ventricular Septal Defect (VSD) and needed surgical closure of the hole. After complete workup by doctors and staff of HDHI and doctors from Department of Paediatrics, DMCH, baby was taken up for surgery on 01.07.2011 and successful operated for closure of VSD. Baby remained on ventilator for 5 days after operation and then weaned off the ventilator. Baby is recovering well and now having a normal healthy post operative course.

Second patient Master Ahmed (4 yr 4 month old) came here on 28.06.2011 along with his father Abdus Samad (resident of Khayber Pakhtoonkhawa, near Peshawar, Pakistan). This patient had complex cardiac problem as his heart had single ventricle and was advised BD Glenn operation by cardiologist and cardiac surgeons there in Pakistan. BD Glenn operation was done on Master Ahmed on 07.07.2011. This patient was extubated and taken off the ventilator next day of surgery and is doing well in our cardiac ICU.

As of now, we have medical reports of 6 more patients whom we intend to operate very soon.

Sh. Prem Gupta, Secretary, Management, DMCH, informed that the management has decided to treat these two patients totally free. No money has been charged to them in terms of medicines or surgery or doctors fee etc. Even the local stay has been made free in our hospital Sarai (rest rooms) by hospital management as a goodwill gesture towards this Nobel cause. As these complicated heart surgeries requires blood transfusion, it was arranged by our hospital blood bank. Sh. Prem Gupta also stressed that all subsequent poor children from Pakistan will be given 50% discount in future also.

There are a large number of patients in Pakistan are having congenital heart disease. These patients go to different countries if they can afford but many of them poor and are deprived of medical services. Some of these poor patients go to Bangalore, India. But as told by the patients and their relatives, they have to spend a lot of money in travelling to Bangalore. Coming to Ludhiana is as easy for them as going from one place to another in Pakistan. There is good connectivity between India and Pakistan through Wagah border. They can walk across the border or can take a train or bus to come to Amritsar and from there, its 2 hours journey to Ludhiana. Our hospital management has decided to provide cardiac ambulance to pickup and drop back these patients to Wagah international border. This makes the travel very convenient to patient and also saves lot of time and money.

Second very important advantage for these patients to come to Ludhiana is that the spoken language is quite similar to what they speak in Pakistan. This makes communication with local people and also to nurses and hospital staff very easy.

Mr. Prem Gupta said that DMCH management is keen to take this project as a continuous service to humanity. He further stresses that hospital management look forward to support poor and needy patients as far as possible both for Indian as well and patients from Pakistan. He feels such gestures will help improve love and affection among citizens across the border.

These efforts need help of media to make this message reach to people at both sides of the border.