Bhaktapur, November 23

The Bhaktapur-based Human Organ Transplant Centre has performed a successful heart surgery for the first time in the history of its establishment.

A team comprising senior heart surgeons Dr Mohandev Bhandari, Dr Sampurnaman Tuladhar, Dr Prem Raj Baidhya, cardiologist Dr Kartikesh Kumar Thakur, anaesthesiologist Dr Sandeep Bhandari and some other foreign doctors were involved in the heart surgery on Radha Devi Shrestha, a patient from Sankhuwasabha district, last week, the centre informed at a press meet today.

Radha Devi Shrestha had been suffering from diabetes and blood pressure.

For the past six months, she had also been complaining of chest pain. “So I went to Shahid Gangalal National Heart Centre. The doctors there told me I needed open heart surgery.”

However, she was told she might have to wait for months as there are no doctors available for surgery. She said she then visited HOTC, which performed the surgery on her the very next day.

According to Dr Dev Bhandari, senior cardiologist at HOTC, they approved the surgery only after assessing that performing surgery on Shrestha would involve only one per cent risk.

“This made us more confident,” he said, adding that so far 99 per cent open heart surgery had been successful in the country. Citing a report, he said five per cent people in the Valley were suffering from coronary artery disease and 20 per cent of them needed immediate operation.

Mostly children and adolescents suffer from rheumatic heart disease. Diabetes and hypertension are the major causes of heart diseases.

“In Kathmandu Valley, 20 per cent people are suffering from diabetes and 25 per cent from hypertension,” said Dr Sampurna Man Tuladhar, consultant cardiac surgeon, adding people were suffering from heart diseases due to unhealthy lifestyle.

“The successful surgery has encouraged not only the doctors but also patients. Now patients can seek treatment for heart diseases without having to spend a lot of money,” said Dr Tuladhar.

He said treatment and open heart surgery cost only Rs 300,000 in the hospital.

HOTC Chief Dr Pukarchandra Shrestha said the centre had achieved a noticeable progress in less than a month after starting the open heart surgery service.

The centre currently remains the sole health facility in Bhaktapur providing heart treatment services. “We are also in the planning stages to start transplant of the cardiac valve and liver in the near future,” he added.