The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Cardiac surgery sans complications

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 24, 2005

Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Cardiac surgery sans complications

Staff Reporter

Research centre adopts new technique

VIJAYAWADA: Shattering the myth that treatment to cardiac ailments is beyond the reach of the common man, the Citi Cardiac Research Centre Limited, popularly known as Dr. Ramesh Hospital, has embarked on an endeavour to bring cardiac services well within their reach.

"Of the 2,000 cardiac surgeries conducted at the centre in the last 10 years, 554 of them were on white ration card-holders with a success rate of 99.6 per cent," says Dr. P. Ramesh Babu, chief cardiologist.

Addressing a press conference here on Thursday, Dr. Ramesh Babu said the hospital was now part of the Government-sponsored `Little Hearts' project, under which six children, all aged under 10, had been operated upon for a hole in their hearts. Ten more children were ready to be operated upon in the next few weeks.

New techniques

The uniqueness of the cardiac centre lies in the latest techniques it had been adopting to enhance its services to patients. Standing out yet again in `Little Hearts' scheme, the hospital engaged Farooqui, a cardio-thoracic surgeon, to break the conventional mode and introduce new techniques aimed at minimising pain and post-operative complications.

Shunning the conventional cardiac surgery wherein the patient's heart was reached by splitting the breast bone or sternum in the centre of the chest and affixing it with stainless steel wires in the post-surgery period, Dr. Farooqi said he opted for the minimal access surgery (MAS), where the heart was approached from the side of the chest, between the ribs.

The new mode helped avoid complications and would not leave any scar on the chest, besides offering the advantages of minimising pain and rapid recovery.

Producing hale and hearty children who underwent surgery for atrial septal defect (hole in the heart) at the centre recently, Dr. Ramesh Babu claimed that the centre had also performed for the first time, a keyhole surgery on a beating heart.

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Andhra Pradesh