Kolkata: Manifold rise in emergency congenital cardiac surgeries on infants after partial lockdon lift

KOLKATA: Congenital cardiac surgeries on neonates and infants are common in some city hospitals that have facilities for such surgeries. However, the number of such surgeries increased substantially in the month of June right after the lockdown was lifted partially.
Narayana Superspeciality Hospital (NSH), Howrah that conducts about 20 arterial switch surgeries in a year, performed six such procedures in June alone, at its pediatric cardiac sciences unit. Most patients are from the neighboring states.
Arterial switch is one such complex cardiac surgery required for a condition called Transposition of Great Arteries (TGA), where the main arteries arising from the heart arise from incorrect pumping chamber leading to low oxygen levels in blood. Some of them also have a hole in the heart, a VSD.
“These are extremely sick blue babies who need surgery mostly within first few weeks of life”, said Dr Amitabh Chattopadhyay, pediatric cardiologist at NSH.
Two children came from Bihar by road transport and reached just in time before they deteriorated substantially.
“The last month was unusual as we do not get to see so many arterial switches done in close succession. There were weeks when we would do three such procedures”, said Dr Debasis Das, cardiac surgeon who led the surgical team.
The surgical team included Dr Nilanjan Dutta, pediatric cardiac surgeon and the cardiac anesthesia team consisted of Dr Manish Sharma and Dr Rangan Koley. The crux of successful outcome in such surgeries depend a lot on the intensive care and pediatric intensivist Dr Shubhadeep Das saw to it that these children were take care of in the ICU.
Alishan Ali, less than a month old from a remote corner in Bihar’s Begusarai was rushed to the hospital on June 11. The baby was found to be suffering from Total anomalous pulmonary venous connection (TAPVC), a condition in which the veins from the lungs do not enter the correct side of the heart and remain obstructed. Born during the lockdown baby had become so sick that doctors performed the surgery on the night itself.