‘Blue baby’ undergoes surgical repair of TAPVC

Pune: A two-month-old infant from Indapur was born with a serious heart condition called Total anomalous pulmonary venous connection. Since the birth of the young boy, his parents had to run from pillar to post for his treatment. The child was a ‘blue baby’, who had very poor weight gain and could not even feed properly and had to struggle to breathe due to his serious heart ailment. He weighed only 2.9 kg at two months of age and was treated at a city-based hospital.

It was August 2 morning, when he underwent a surgical repair of Total Anomalous Pulmonary Venous Connection (TAPVC) at Jupiter Hospital by a dedicated paediatric cardiac team of doctors, which included Dr Abhijeet Naik, the paediatric cardiac surgeon, Dr Rahul Saraf, paediatric cardiologist and with the aid of Dr Srinivas Tambe, paediatric cardiac intensivist.

On Postoperative day 2, on August 4, calamity stuck Jupiter hospital, at Baner with the heavy rains causing a flood like situation and the hospital having to evacuate the patients as an extreme measure. Along with other 103 patients, Sarthak had to be evacuated to a neighbouring hospital for support. It was no mean feat to evacuate Sarthak, all with his open chest, ventilator support and a myriad of drains and tubes sticking out of his body and also with a battery of pumps pushing life supporting medications in him.

The team of doctors from the hospital closed the sternum of the young child in the ICU of the neighbouring hospital after 24 hours and it was decided to shift the baby for better quality care to Jupiter hospital in Thane, a unit of Jupiter Lifeline hospitals in Mumbai.

After dedicated efforts, the baby was back at Jupiter Hospital, Pune.  Dr Srinivas Tambe, paediatric cardiac intensivist said,  “He was shifted to the paediatric cardiac ICU with his chest open on account of the complex surgery. It was very difficult for doctors and the baby also.”