IGIMS to restart bypass surgeries

Patna: The Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) is all set to restart bypass surgery at the hospital.

Doctors at IGIMS have performed two bypass surgeries so far but since the past two months, no new surgery was done due to absence of a cardiac anaesthetist. The hospital is now going to recruit a cardiac anaesthetist after which bypass surgeries would be performed again by the doctors in the hospital.

“Cardiac anaesthetist Dr Pankaj left the hospital two months ago after which not a single bypass surgery has been done. After the appointment of new cardiac anaesthetist, for which we are going to take approval in the Body of Governors (BOG) meeting, this problem would be sorted out. We would be able to do bypass surgeries again here,” said IGIMS director Dr N.R. Biswas on Saturday.

Head of the cardiology department of IGIMS Dr B.P. Singh said the hospital was yet to start the coronary artery bypass grafting surgery though. “We hope to start it once the cardiac anaesthetist’s post is filled up at the hospital. Anaesthetist who have specialisation in cardiac anaesthesia are required during the surgery,” said Singh.

Among the government hospitals, only Indira Gandhi Institute of Cardiology (IGIMS) has bypass surgery facility. The biggest state-run medical college hospital – Patna Medical College and Hospital (PMCH) – still doesn’t have the facility due to which poor patients have to face a lot of problem as many of them either cannot get the surgery done while a few get this done at private hospitals by taking loans.

So far as open heart surgery is concerned, the first open heart surgery was done at IGIMS for atrial septal defect closure (closure of hole in the heart) on a 30-year-old lady from Patna Ranju Devi last year in September. Ranju had a hole in the lower chambers of her heart since birth. Her condition led to fatigue and breathlessness. The cardiothoracic and vascular surgery department doctors’ team headed by Sheil Avnish performed the surgery.

Sources said that while at private hospitals, one has to pay something around Rs 2 lakh to get the AST closure surgery done, at IGIC it is available free of cost, while at IGIMS, patients need to cough up Rs 60,000 for getting the surgery done. However, the problem is at IGIC, the open heart surgery is not done on a regular basis due to staff crunch and various other issues while patients also have to face long waiting periods at IGIC because of being the only government hospital to have been equipped with the open heart surgeries facility.

“We have a very experienced team at our cardiothoracic and vascular surgery (CTVS) department. Dr Sheil Avnish is an experienced doctor who has earlier worked at All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi, and has so far done around 300 bypass surgeries,” said a senior administrative official of IGIMS, adding that the hospital was also planning to conduct its maiden bone marrow transplant first which would be also first such surgery to be conducted in any government hospital here.

Courtesy: The Telegraph