Apollo Hospitals, which brought the concept of world-class corporate hospitals to the country, is opening a heart hospital dedicated to children. The state-of-the-art cardiac facility for children, attached to Apollo Jubilee Hills, will be inaugurated by Governor Surjit Singh Barnala on Sunday.
Addressing newsmen on Friday, Sangita Reddy, Managing Director of the hospital group, said the Children's Heart Hospital, set up a cost of Rs 4 crore, would have world-class operating rooms, sophisticated equipment and a highly skilled team of professionals to provide comprehensive paediatric cardiac care. The hospital was equipped to diagnose heart diseases even in the foetus with advanced echocardiography.
In India, 44,000 babies are born every day. Of these, 400 children are born with congenital heart disease (hole in the heart). About 8 of these 400 children get treatment for correction of heart defects and the remaining 392 go untreated and many of them die during their childhood. This means 1,50,000 children with congenital heart defects are deprived of proper care every year. There is an acute need for centres that would help such children and ensure a future for them. In India, dedicated paediatric cardiology and cardiac surgery units are non-existent.
Paediatric patients need a different approach to care, special infrastructure and above all a team of skilled and dedicated professionals. Major hospitals in the country do handle paediatric cardiac patients, but are always clubbed with adult surgery resulting in sub-optimal results. Apollo Children's Heart Hospital will fill this gap and dedicate the new facility for the young hearts.
Sangita Reddy said the parents of a large section of children suffering from heart defects would not be able to afford the costly treatment. "Apollo's heart goes out to these children in the form of setting up the Apollo Children's Heart Trust. The Trust will ensure that those deserving children are not destined to a futureless existence."
The Trust would provide for treatment for heart defects in these children so that they could live a life of joy and spread joy wherever they went. While Apollo group of hospitals would be the major contributor to this Trust, donations from all those who care for the little ones would be accepted. " The one single goal of this Trust is to provide financial access to the under-privileged children to quality cardiac care and help them grow up to be healthy citizens," says Sangita Reddy.
She also introduced the eminent doctors who are driven by deep knowledge and commitment. Dr K S Murthy, brings with him expertise of a rare kind. Having worked in Green Lane Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand, he has performed over 4,000 cardiac surgeries, including procedures on the newborn babies with results comparable to the best in the world. He is the only paediatric surgeon in the country who performs single unifocalisation procedure for the treatment of blue-baby-syndrome or what is medically known as Tetralogy Fallot. He will be assisted by Dr Prasad Reddy, who easily wins the hearts of children, Dr Kinnari Bhatt, with extensive experience in paediatric anaesthesia at several reputed hospitals in the US and Dr Anuja Gupta, also with long experience in paediatric cardiac intensive care in Los Angeles.
The new team of doctors fielded newsmen's questions and said identification of heart diseases in children was a major challenge, as delayed diagnosis could result in irreversible changes and even death. Technology and medical expertise could help diagnose heart diseases even in the foetus and correct those defects. Advances in the field of genetics would further add efficiency to early diagnostic procedures. However, awareness in the public was minimal and on most occasions children at high risk of heart diseases did not receive medical attention till advanced stages of the disease. Then it would be too late
They said if the child was brought to the specialist within one month of its birth, the chances of cure was even 90 per cent. "If you identify the problem at the right time and bring the child to the right hospital and the right doctor, the problem can be cured without difficulty. The holes are also closed without surgery by using the umbrella method."
Ms Sangita Reddy said this was a significant beginning and she hoped the hospital would bloom into a world-class paediatric super-speciality soon.