INDIAN RECORDS
Set By : Dr Shashank Shrotriya, Sai Child Care Clinic
Gauri is a special girl with an extraordinary survival instinct. She was born prematurely at 24 weeks of her mother's pregnancy, weighed a measly 580gm and had a complex heart condition that made her gasp for breath. Her young parents, however, rushed from Alibaug to Panvel and achieved a miracle of sorts: their daughter is perhaps one of the youngest and lightest Indians to successfully undergo a heart surgery.
The extra-cardiac surgery was carried out on September 24 at Sai Child Care Clinic, Panvel, Mumbai. Pune-based neo-natal surgeon Dr Shashank Shrotriya was called to Panvel to perform the operation on the fragile child who weighed a little more than a mobile phone.
"This is perhaps the first time in the country that a baby weighing a mere 580gm has undergone a heart surgery. We normally do not carry out surgery on babies weighing below 1kg; so it is an extraordinary feat for the baby girl," said Dr Shrotriya who works at KEM Hospital in Pune.
In 2005, an India-born surgeon, Dr V Mohan Reddy, had operated on a 700-gram premature boy in Lucile Packard Children's Hospital in Stanford.
The heart operation took over 90 minutes surgery to correct an abnormal connection of one particular vessel to two major blood vessels.
Gauris proud parents are happy to get financial help from citizens who were moved by their story of how Rs 5 lakh was spent to save a fragile girl child. Gauri’s poor parents Rajendra and Ashwini Patil had taken a loan to pay the Rs 5 lakh medical bill for the surgery. A Navi Mumbai resident working for a major corporate firm,Vijay Nair, was the first to come forward and help the parents in loan repayment. He paid the first two EMIs, which amounts to Rs 16,000, to help the Patils.
Rajendra, who works at the zilla parishad office in Alibaug, was thankful to Nair and others who are offering financial help. Some people at my Saral village in Alibaug taluka cant accept the fact that I spent Rs 5 lakh to save a girl child, said Rajendra.
Gauri is perhaps the lightest baby to undergo the heart operation for the patent ductus arteriosus (PDA) condition on September 24, 2016 at Panvel, Mumbai.
