Cardiac care at affordable prices in Odisha’s Sum Hospital

Odisha Sun Times Bureau
Bhubaneswar, May 13:

Continuing its expansion, the Institute of Medical Sciences and Sum Hospital (IMSSH) under SOA University here, the only teaching hospital in Odisha with NABH ((National Accreditation Board for Hospitals) accreditation, has been successfully conducting critical cardiac surgeries while extending quality health care to its growing clientele.

The hospital’s department of Cardiac Sciences, comprising separate Cardiology and Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Surgery (CTVS) units, has been equipped with advanced state-of-the-art infrastructure to handle critical cases while conducting open heart surgeries regularly with great success.

“The CTVS department has already performed around 150 cases of open heart surgery over the last 18 months successfully which included bypass surgery, single and double valve replacement and repair of congenital holes,” Dr Jitendra Patnaik, head of the department, told a news conference on Wednesday.

The department is equipped with advanced state-of-the-art modular OT and exclusive and well-equipped six-bedded Intensive Care Unit (ICU) manned by trained nursing staff, he said.

The Medical Director of IMSSH, Prof DK Ray, Medical Superintendent, Prof PK Mohanty and head of the cardiology department, Prof AK Samal were present at the press conference.

Ray said that surgeries were being done in Sum Hospital at highly competitive prices compared to other hospitals in the private sector while the department of cardiac sciences was handling critical cases.

“Recently, the department successfully conducted a very difficult case of mitral valve replacement in a patient with nephrotic syndrome,” he added.

Prof Mohanty said as a NABH-accredited institution, IMSSH provided better care compared to similar hospitals at a very affordable cost. Operations were being done under Odisha State Treatment Fund (OSTF) and Biju Krushak Kalyan Yojana (BKKY) schemes with the package attracting many poor patients who were getting the benefit of open heart surgery.

Prof  Samal replied to various queries about heart diseases and the facilities available at Sum Hospital to tackle cardiac problems.

Providing details of the patient with nephrotic syndrome on whom he had conducted surgery on April 21 last, Dr Patnaik said the 25-year-old patient had visited several prominent hospitals in Bengaluru and Hyderabad where the doctors had not taken the risk of conducting surgery.

Suffering since the age of five, the patient had been advised to go for mitral valve replacement but it was difficult to operate because he was losing protein from the body which could have led to heart failure.

The CTVS team at the hospital decided to go ahead with the surgery under the supervision of the nephrology department and with the help of anaesthetists Dr Chandra Sekhar Pradhan and Dr Usha Jagannathan, Pattnaik said.

After surgery, special attention was given to the maintenance of the protein level in the body and he was put in charge of Dr Ishwar Behera, who formerly worked in the Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore and Dr Chandra Sekhar Pradhan for critical care in the ICU to ensure that the kidneys functioned properly, he added.

“Reports of adult open heart surgery could not be traced in internationally circulated literature on patients with nephrotic syndrome,” Dr Patnaik said.

He said many patients, after trying to get treated in other hospitals but unable to afford the cost, were coming to Sum Hospital with the disease in aggravated stage due to the delay.

“The doctors in the hospital were taking the risk of operating on patients with very low functional reserve of the heart as they had been declined surgery elsewhere,” he noted.

The cardiac science department was also conducting camps at different places in Odisha to provide cardiac care to the people at their doorstep.