CHENNAI: Constantly striving to bring medical innovations to the general public, especially those who cannot afford private care, the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital has begun conducting heart surgeries using cardiac catheters. Over the past month or so, the cardiology department at the Hospital has successfully completed six surgeries for people who were suffering from congenital heart defects using catheters. All of them were covered under the Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme. “We are one of first state-run institutions in the country to be able to afford and use catheters for heart surgery,” said MMC Dean Dr V Kanagasabai, with pride.While catheters have been in use in private hospitals for ages, they have been scarcely used in public sector hospitals because they are expensive and can only be used once. “With the new provisions of the CM’s scheme, such innovative techniques that are quicker, cleaner and better for the patients are being used,” he added. Among the six patients who were operated on, three were children aged five, 10 and 12. The others were slightly older. “As they all had defects in their heart from birth it is inevitable that they needed corrective surgery, but this is much better than opening their chests up,” he explained.While one person had an atrial septal defect, two had patent ductus arteriosus, two had ruptured sinus of valsalva and the last one had a coarctation of aorta. Normally, there is a misconception that catheters can only be used to ‘see’ inside a patients body, said another senior cardiologist there, “As it looks very much like a needle and a plastic tube, people do not trust it and seem to want surgery. We are slowly changing this attitude,” he added.
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