Open heart surgery in a village

09 June 2005

Open heart surgery in a village? Ashwin Tombat narrates how Dr K M Cherian offered a new lease of life to three Iraqi children at Parumala, the world''s only village with a super-speciality heart hospital.

On a small picturesque island surrounded by the tributaries of Kerala''s Pampa river, three Iraqi children suffering from complex congenital heart defects recently underwent open-heart surgery, at the world''s only super speciality hospital in a village — the cardiovascular centre at the 300-bed St Gregorious Mission Hospital in Parumala, part of the Kadapra panchayat in the Thiruvalla taluka of Kerala''s Pathanamthitta district. Even the nearest railway stations, at Thiruvalla, Chengannur and Mavelikara, are all 10 km or more away.

It is in this village that the Dr K M Cherian Heart Foundation has set up a super-speciality centre equipped with an emergency cardiac critical care unit with continuous monitoring facilities of the patients'' condition, computerised ECG and treadmill testing (TMT), the latest echo-cardio diagnostic unit with colour doppler, ventilators, monitors, blood gas analysers and six 24-hour acute coronary care beds. It also has a modern cathlab for advanced angioplasty and a state-of-the-art cardiac operation theatre with post-op facilities, an intensive care unit (ICU) and heart-assisting devices such as an intra-aortic balloon pump (IABP).

The Parumala centre is supported by Frontier Lifeline, of which Dr KM Cherian, 63, is the chairman and CEO. It also runs the 120-bed super-speciality International Centre for Cardio Thoracic and Vascular Diseases in Chennai (of which he is the founder director) which offers a complete range of treatment for patients with congenital, ischaemic, valvular, myocardial and vascular diseases.

Within a span of one year of its starting, it has already started attracting a large number of patients from countries like Iraq, Palestine, Kenya, Zambia, etc, in addition to patients from all over India. Manned by over 30 highly qualified and very skilled doctors, this hospital extends total heart care at very affordable rates.