Dr Balwant Singh Hospital, over a five-day period, successfully performed groundbreaking and complex cardiac surgeries on six patients through visiting doctors from India.
All six surgeries were successfully performed between August 13-17, with no complications.
The procedures were carried out by visiting cardiac surgeon Dr. Prashant Vaijaynath and his team comprising Dr Vijay Patil, Cardiologist; Ramesh Vardharajan, Anaesthesiologist; Vishwanath Belavi, Perfusionist; and Elvina Mariadoss, physician assistant.
This development is said to be a momentous one for the hospital, and there are hopes of further developing this partnership that has been created to continue to provide these services to the Guyanese people.
The doctor explained the procedures and spoke of the successes of the operations.
Four of the operations were described as “beat heart” or “off pump” beating heart bypass operations, while the other two were open-heart surgeries.
“During this visit, we had operated six patients, and four of them were what you would call in the layman term cabbages, which is a coronary artery bypass graft surgery. The standard of care in our hands is ‘beating-heart’ surgery, which means we don’t put the patient on heart-lung machine. We do that in anastomosis – the coronary bypass, on beating heart, by stabilising the heart; and we don’t strap the heart at all.”
“So, four of the six patients were operated, and they had an excellent outcome… within an hour of surgery, they had minimal or no blood transfusions, which means hardly any unit of blood was used. There were no complications like bleeding or respiratory complications… there was almost zero complications”, Dr. Prashant further stated.
Additionally, Dr Prashant revealed that he and his team had operated on a 21-year-old female who had a critical case of mitral stenosis, which saw an irregular flow of blood into the main pumping chamber of the heart from an abnormal valve.
More so, a 15-year-old boy who the doctor stated had a large defect in his heart called common atrium, whereby a “curtain” had to be placed between the two chambers of his heart.
Two of the three recovering patients shared their experience of undergoing surgery, stating that the procedure had gone along smoothly for them, and that they are recovering well.
The doctor stated that he hopes to operate regularly on a monthly basis to help the Guyanese people.
Currently, there are five other patients registered to have surgeries of a similar nature done.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Officer of the hospital, Dr Madhu Singh, stated, “It has
been the desire of Balwant Singh Hospital to fill this particular health care need in Guyana. With the help of this team, we were able to fill this gap and give access to safe and advanced cardiac surgery.”
Dr Singh added, “We, at Balwant Singh Hospital, are extremely pleased with this success and the fact that we were able to help very sick patients who have been awaiting surgery for more than a year.”
She noted that the cost of the surgery depends on how complex the patient’s condition is. However, the baseline cost is US$9000.
Singh noted that patients have been waiting for almost two years to get some amount of relief, due to their conditions.
She also stated that they have been assured by the Government and the Health Ministry that they will receive their cooperation.
The success of the surgeries performed has led to the expansion of the hospital’s services by way of a holistic cardiac care unit.
The next round of surgeries is expected to be performed by the team within the next six to eight weeks.
It is the hope of the Dr Balwant Singh Hospital that more public and private partnerships of similar nature would see patients being able to access these life-saving surgeries without having to travel abroad.
