Mumbai, June 25 (Inditop.com) When 70-year-old Mumbai resident Satya Devi Gandhi suffered two successive heart attacks in Ludhiana within 24 hours this month, top doctors there and in other cities of north India washed their hands off.
Not only is she aged, has diabetes, high blood pressure and asthma but she had also suffered a rupture in the ventricular septum due to the cardiac arrest.
“Ventricular septum, in lay terms, implies a hole in the partition of the heart, an extremely rare occurrence in cases of cardiac arrests,” explained Ramakant Panda, the cardiac surgeon who headed the team of medicos now treating her at the prestigious Asian Heart Institute (AHI) in Bandra here.
In fact, for nearly a week after she suffered the attacks June 14 and 15, no doctor in north India was willing to touch the case. Satya Devi was in Ludhiana on a private visit at that time.
“We were shattered and had practically given up all hopes of her survival,” said her son, V.K. Gandhi, a senior executive vice-president at Reliance Industries Ltd.
“Actually, such a condition is considered as rarest of rare, so much that top cardiologists do not even get five such cases in their lifetime,” Panda, who was in the national limelight after operating on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh a few months ago, told IANS here.
AHI, where the patient was finally brought and treated, rose to the challenge, though there were other major obstacles in store. Panda is the AHI managing director and vice chairman.
It was decided to shift Satya Devi from Ludhiana to AHI, in a chartered air ambulance, a risky venture by itself.
“Such critical patients are usually not transferred as they are on life support systems which are battery-operated with a capacity of only two hours. The flight from Ludhiana to Mumbai takes five hours,” said Vijay D’Silva, director, medical affairs and critical care, AHI.
The hospital contacted the company which makes the Intra Aortic Balloon Pump (IABP) to arrange for two very expensive spare batteries and a technician to accompany D’Silva to Ludhiana and return to Mumbai in the chartered flight.
Gandhi said D’Silva took the IABP to the Ludhiana hospital where his mother was being treated and put her on the machine there, transferred to an ambulance to the airport, onto the eight-seater aircraft to Mumbai, and then to the AHI.
“Usually, most such patients don’t even survive in the intensive cardiac care unit (ICCU). What we achieved is unprecedented in India,” Panda observed.
The air operation was carried out by AMAS Medical Services, specialising in handling such cases. “Our medical teams look after evacuation, portable airworthy equipment, etc, and such an operation can be expensive – the flight costs around Rs.150,000 per hour,” revealed Anil Mehra, the air ambulance’s managing director.
Owing to the long flight in the small aircraft and bad weather conditions that were ably handled by pilot Bharat Yadav to ensure a smooth journey, the battery was changed mid-air by the technician and the patient was transferred to the hospital Monday.
That day, a team of medicos led by Panda, conducted a two-hour complicated surgical procedure that included a bypass surgery and an operation to close the hole in the heart.
Barely 48 hours later, Gandhi said though his mother remains in the ICCU, she is fine, off the ventilator and slowly returning to normalcy. “Doctors have said she may remain in ICCU till Friday or so,” he said.
The entire anxious Gandhi family, including Satya Devi’s husband, three sons and a daughter are at her bedside, awaiting her complete recovery.
“For us, Dr. Panda and Dr. D’Silva are like god’s angels who have performed a miracle and given a second life to our mother,” said Gandhi in a voice choked with emotion. He even appreciated the efforts of AMAS doctor Deepak and pilot Yadav for ensuring Satya Devi’s hassle-free transfer to Mumbai.
rounak