Bhopal Hospital scores cardiology milestone

Bhopal, July 9: The Bhopal Memorial Hospital and Research Centre's Cardiology Department has tackled 10,000 cases of cardiac interventional procedures over a span of six years, the Department's Head claimed.

''The Department has been the first in Madhya Pradesh to undertake procedures such as Coronary Angioplasty, Balloon Valvuloplasty, implantation of dual-chamber pacemaker, implantation of Automatic Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (AICD) and non-surgical device closure of holes in the heart and interventions in infants,'' said Dr Skand Kumar Trivedi yesterday.

The break-up is Coronary Angiography 6,585, Coronary Angioplasty 2,106, Balloon Mitral Valvuloplasty 670, single-chamber pacemaker 390, dual-chamber pacemaker 146, device closure for holes in heart and AICDs 103.

''In addition to having primarily treated Bhopal gas tragedy victims, the patients included VIPs, ministers, MLAs, MPs, Supreme Court judges, IAS, IPS officers and doctors. The herculean task witnessed cooperation from departments including those of Cardiothoracic Surgery and Anesthesiology,'' the physician added.

The Department is a 30-bed unit with a ten-bed Coronary Care Unit (CCU) that provides 24-hour emergency services besides elective services such as the Exercise Stress Test, 24-hour Holter Monitoring and Echocardiography. For gas tragedy victims, these services are free. The CCU charges Rs 1,700 per day. The average cost of five days' stay for an uncomplicated heart attack patient is less than Rs 20,000.

''The Department is the only recognised centre for imparting super-specialty training to post-graduate doctors in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In addition, several physicians are sponsored by the state government for short-term training of senior medical officers,'' explained Dr Trivedi.

He lauded colleagues Consultant Cardiologist Rakesh Kumar Singh, HoD (Cardiothoracic Surgery) Hemant Pande, Associate Prof (Cardiothoracic Surgery) Vivek Kanhere, HoD (Anaesthesia) R C Agrawal and others.

UNI