Aligarh

Pediatric Cardiac Surgery in the Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College (JNMC) has reached new heights as the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, JNMC has become the only department in various medical colleges of Western Uttar Pradesh doing cardiac, thoracic and vascular surgeries routinely.

“We are proud that the department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, JNMC has started doing beating heart surgery in children and have done several successful complex operations like Coarctation of Aorta , Pulmonary Artery banding, PDA ligation and BT Shunt,” confirmed Professor Mohammad Hanif Beg, Chairman, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery.

He said that official figures show that at least six percent of children are born with birth defects, this translates into more than 15 lakh new-borns with birth defects annually.

He pointed out that in the absence of health insurance, the costs of paediatric heart operations and catheter interventions are prohibitive for most Indian families and only a small proportion of India’s mostly urban population can afford it.

“Since most centers are clustered in large cities in selected regions in India, we are fortunate that JNMC at present has both trained pediatric cardiologists and Cardiac surgeons,” said Prof Beg.

Meanwhile, Prof Tariq Mansoor, Principal and CMS expressed happinesss at the development and hoped that installation of cath lab and heart lung machine will further help in achieving better patient care.

The cardiac surgery team comprises of Prof Beg, Dr Mohd Azam Haseen and Dr Sayyed Ehtesham Naqvi and pediatric cardiology is being managed by Dr Shaad Abqari.