Vikram Hospital to start heart surgery on children
The Hindu, 20th June, 2003

The Vikram Hospital and Heart Centre here will soon start performing surgery on children suffering from congenital heart ailments. The Managing Director of Vikram Hospital and Heart Centre, S.B. Vikram, told presspersons here on Thursday that in the nine months of its existence, the hospital had successfully performed the whole spectrum of heart surgeries, including bypass, with zero percent mortality. “This has boosted our confidence. We are now ready for the more difficult task of operating on children suffering from heart diseases,” Dr. Vikram said.

The Chief Cardiac Surgeon, Nagendra Prakash, said cardiac surgeries on children woud be conducted in stages from August 1. “We will consider surgery only on children weighing more than 10 kg. Newborns and infants will not be touched,” Dr. Prakash said. Though no data was available on the incidence of heart diseases among children in India, global studies had indicated that one in 1000 children had congenital heart syndrome while one in 10,000 children had complicated heart syndrome.

But, effort would be made to identify heart ailments in children early by conducting camps in schools. Dr. Prakash said Vikram Hospital’s move to perform heart surgeries on children would help not only residents of Mysore, but also patients from surrounding areas.

The hospital had decided to start performing heart surgeries on children to bring state-of-the-art technology and expertise to the doorstep of the people of Mysore and surrounding districts at affordable cost. “Contrary to public perception, our rates are reasonable. They are lower compared to amounts charged by hospitals in Bangalore,” Dr. Vikram said.

“Quite a few high-risk, complicated surgeries have been performed with excellent results,” Dr. Vikram said, adding that a team of heart surgeons, anaesthetists, intensivists, nurses and other technicians were well trained to handle different situations.

Through a video presentation, Dr. Vikram said 1,224 patients had been admitted to the hospital since its inception in September 2002. As many as 513 were cardiac cases. The mortality rate in cardiac cases was 16, a mere 1.2 percent. So far, 416 angiograms, 96 bypass surgeries, and 88 angioplasties had been performed in the hospital, he said. Besides, 280 renal surgeries had also been conducted.

Model ICU

Dr. Vikram said Critical Care Asia, a technical magazine on medical issues, had adjudged the hospital’s ICU “Model Intensive Care Unit (ICU)” in the entire country. He said the 60-bed hospital had four operation theatres, a digital cardiac catheterization laboratory, and 25 critical-care beds.

It had also invested in advanced programmes for preventive cardiology.