Doctor's Day: Narayana Health - Saving a heart in midst of the lockdown

Dr Pradeep Kaushik

The baby is celebrating one month of medical miracle. At this time a month ago, doctors from two districts in Maharashtra- Sangli and Mumbai and the State-run 108 ambulance service were working overtime to ensure that this baby born with a rare heart condition got emergency surgery. On May 2, the baby was raced from Sangli to SRCC Children's Hospital in Mumbai in six ambulances across 380km in 10 hours.

The child seemed healthy at first. A few weeks later, he began turning blue. The parents rushed him to Sangli Civil Hospital. The tiny patient was first diagnosed with d-Transposition of Great Arteries (d-TGA) - where the two main arteries come out from a different heart chamber and the body does not oxygenated blood. In this type of diagnosis, the operation ideally must be done within first 2 weeks of life, otherwise one of the main pumping chamber of the heart starts failing. Due to lack of facilities there, sending the baby to an advanced centre was the only option.

At SRCC Children's Hospital, the baby's oxygen level was just 40%. After evaluation and repeat ECHO, another severe heart condition- Infracardiac Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Connection (TAPVC) was revealed. Here, the vessels carrying purified blood from the lungs drain through the liver. The next morning, the infant underwent an eight hour-long procedure where both the complex conditions of the heart were repaired.

Dr Pradeep Kaushik- Senior Consultant (Paediatric Cardiac Surgery) at SRCC Children's Hospital, performed one of the rarest of heart surgeries in the world on a 45 day old baby. The surgery was performed successfully at a time when the prevention and treatment services for non- communicable diseases (NCDs) have been severely disrupted since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Today, the baby is recuperating well at home

"This is the first procedure performed in India and there is only one reported case in South America with combination of these two conditions who survived post- surgery"

Dr Pradeep Kaushik (Sr Consultant, Paediatric Cardiac Surgery at SRCC Children's Hospital, managed by Narayana Health)
Patient Helpline No- 186-0208-0208
Website: www.narayanahealth.org

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