When a person gets diagnosed with coronary illness that needs high risk invasive treatment, choosing  a right place and provider is verycrucial. I am hoping that my recent experience can be of some interest to those who are in dilemma  in search  for a hospital where the treatment is safe and affordable.

Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai (AHI)

Heart  patients, who can not be operated in Nepal due to lack of adequate facilities go particularly to  big hospitals  in  Delhi.  Those who can afford  evengo to European countries and the USA.  Only very few  in Nepal know that the Asian Heart Institute at Mumbai is not just only the best hospital  for heart surgery in India but it   indeed can be  regarded  as one of the best in the world in terms of exceptionally  high quality of  medical services. Despite the fact  that this hospital  is performing mostly highrisk heart surgery,  the success rate  of heart operations carried out in this hospital is astonishingly very high 99.8 percent.Renowned  cardiovascular  thoracic  surgeon   Dr. Rama Kanta Panda, a topper of All India Institute of Medical Science, Delhi and the founder of the Asian Heart Institute, who had a long years of research and work experience in the famous Cleveland heart surgery center of the USA  is the key person behind the great successof this  hospital.

My Heart Diseases

I had suffered serious heart attack about 30 years ago. A year laterI  had undergone an open heart surgery. Since the last few years my heart conditionagain started to deteriorate.  Last year it was suddenly found that my health  was  already in a very critical condition.   My  rightmain coronary artery was soon going to be completely blocked. Apart  fromthat I had developedanother even more serious heart diseases. It was diagnosed that I urgently needed to undergo a complicated heart surgery to replace  one of my diseased heart valves. In the absence of surgical intervention further deterioration  ofdiseased valve might have ended up into complete heart failure in matter of months.

In a Dilemma

It became quite obvious that  my survival depended upon  a very complicated open heart surgery, which was going to be very risky. We were trying to find a suitable hospital in India where it is safe and affordable to perform my heart surgery.We consulted various doctors. We were told by cardiologist Dr. Y. Bhatta that the Asian Heart Institute, Mumbai is the best hospital in India for  complicated heart surgery. I immediately opted for my surgery in Asian Heart Institute once I learnt that  Dr. R.K. Panda had operated on India’s then current prime minister Manmohan Singh, who was acutely suffering from coronary artery blockage. The surgery was quite complicated because he was  already about 80 years old and it was his redo operation. We found that Dr. Panda had operated on many other top people of Indian society like Lalu Yadav from Bihar, chief minister of Assam and many others.

A God

My daughter, who had accompanied me on travel to Mumbai has written that when someone enters the premises of AHI   one don’t get the feeling of being in a typical hospital. Keeping aside lovely building and architecture, the person will notice lots of patients and  their family who are very grateful for second life. Many even calling  Dr. Panda “God”.

High Risk 15 Hours long Operation

A press release at the Asian Heart Institute has described the complexity of my 15 hour long high risk operation “ This was a very risky case as redo bypass  and valve replacement are highly complex procedures with almost 10-20 % mortality rate during the actual surgery. Patient’s age ( 77 years) and low heart pumping  were other factors that increased the risk of the surgery manifold.”

Among few World’s Best Hospitals

The AHI press release has given further details “ Not just in India but globally also there are very few hospitals that are experienced in performing these kind of complex procedures involving redo operations in a patient with low heart pumping. Redo bypass (second time bypass) is especially challenging as the chest gets struck to the surrounding structure of the bones and even lungs. This can increase the time required for operating of the chest for open heart surgery from few minutes to few hours.”

Gifting Me a New Life

As expected the surgery was  completelysuccessful. A few months later I  completely recuperated from surgery. I am very grateful to Dr. Panda and his team for gifting me  a new life.