Gangtok: A complicated heart surgery on a 7-year-old girl was successfully performed at Central Referral Hospital (CRH) in Sikkim last week, giving a boost to pediatric cardiology care in the state.
A new chapter was written in CRH–STNM hospital cooperation as the CRH successfully conducted its first case of device closure of the hole in the heart of a 7-year-old girl on February 1.
The child was suffering from recurrent respiratory infections and was diagnosed with a large atrial septal defect. The defect has been closed successfully. She is one of the youngest patients on whom percutaneous cardiac intervention was done within the state.
The treatment of interventional cardiology in Sikkim kicked off with the setting up of a cath lab in Central Referral Hospital in 2013, allowing treatment for heart attacks, heart blocks, and heart failure within the state.
The setting of the new STNM super-specialty hospital in 2019, with the initiation of the Cardiology Department and cath lab services, enabled the otherwise costly service more affordable in Sikkim.
The two cath labs of the state continued to provide services like coronary angiography, coronary angioplasty, pacemaker, and implantable defibrillator implantation, among others.
However, the state hospital still lacked an interventional cardiology treatment service for children and babies. This led to a discussion between the administration of Central Referral Hospital, and the new STNM super specialty Hospital, and it was agreed that Dr. Zeeshan Ahmed Mumtaz, Consultant Cardiologist at CRH, will conduct pediatric cardiology clinic at the new STNM Hospital cardiology OPD on Saturdays.
Dr. Zeeshan has a fellowship in pediatric cardiology and is experienced in the field. This will lead to the improvement of pediatric cardiac care and the opportunity for specialist consults free of cost.
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CRH is now equipped to handle cardiac intervention even in children. This will hopefully lead to improvement in inter-hospital cooperation of other medical and surgical departments of the public and private hospitals of the state as well.
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