Jarawa child with heart ailment treated at Chennai hospital

Port Blair/Chennai, Aug 28: A 70-day-old Jarawa child from Andaman and Nicobar islands has succesfully undergone a surgery for a rare congenital heart condition at a private hospital in Chennai for a complex heart problem.

The boy, suffering from common atrio ventricular canal (a condition in which two heart valves are joined together), underwent the three-hour long surgery for correcting the problem at Madras Medical Mission Hospital earlier this week.

"The child is doing fine and will be discharged in another 5-6 days," Head of Paediatric Cardiology of MMM, Dr K Sivakumar told PTI in Chennai today. The condition was not very rare but was also not too common, Sivakumar, who along with Dr Roy Varghese, performed the surgery, said. "Among all the congenital heart diseases, complete atrio ventricular canal contributes to one per cent", he said adding major part of the surgery cost of about Rs three lakh was borne by the central government.

Sources in Port Blair said the child from Kadamtala was referred to the Chennai Hospital by GB Pant Hospital earlier this month. Chairman of Port Blair Municipal Council K Ganeshan visited the child at the MMM Hospital.

PTI