16 children with heart defect treated at GMC
PANAJI: Sixteen children suffering from complex heart defects were treated at the Goa Medical College (GMC) as part of the fifth pediatric cardiac surgical workshop held last week.
Led by the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery (CVTS) and chief cardiovascular and thoracic surgeon Dr Shirish Borkar, a team of visiting faculty from India and eight medical professionals from Leeds, UK operated on children between the age group of three months to 9 years.
Majority of the children suffered from poor health due to heart defects and were faced with challenging surgeries, including complex valve repairs, repairs of the tetralogy of fallot with complex anatomy and ventricular septial defects.
The operations would, under normal circumstances, cost between Rs 4 lakh to 5 lakh though at the GMC expenses incurred were less than Rs 50,000.
Dr Ravi Agarwal, senior consultant pediatric cardiac surgeon from Madras Medical Mission, Chennai and a team of eight medical professionals from Leeds, UK interacted with the team of Cardiac Union of GMC over the week-long workshop.
Medical team that visited Goa from Leeds, UK included a pediatric cardiac surgeon, pediatric cardiac anesthesiologist, pediatric cardiologist, three pediatric intensivists and two pediatric intensive care unit nurses.
During their stay at GMC, there were extensive deliberations on management of various pediatric techniques and advances, management of patients in the post-operative intensive care unit. Nurses of cardiac post-operative care unit and cardiac operation theater benefited to a great extent from this workshop.
Beside Dr Borkar, Dr Jagannath Kolwalkar, Dr Sunil Chandra Vidhya Sagar, Dr Guruprasad Naik and Dr Manjunath Dessai were involved in the workshop.
