Wockhardt Hospitals Blog

A 14 year old girl from Uganda who came to India with a dilating heart showing signs of heart failure has undergone a complicated open heart surgery at Wockhardt Hospitals. The cardiac team at Wockhardt Hospitals led by Dr. Vivek Jawali, Chief Cardio Thoracic Surgeon performed risky and complicated open heart procedure to replace the mitral valve, repair a leaking tricuspid valve and maze procedure to correct her abnormal heart rhythm.

Abigail Kanyonyozi was brought to Wockhardt Hospitals when she was on the brink of heart failure. Abigail was diagnosed to have a blood cancer called acute myeloid leukaemia in 2000 and Lynda’s saga of her fight for her daughter began. Abigail had undergone a prolonged and expensive treatment in South Africa for her blood cancer. This led Lynda (her mother) exhaust her all finances to bring Abigail back to normal life. After few years of fully recovering from her blood cancer Abigail was diagnosed with heart disease called dolurebecin cardio myopathy which dilates the heart resulting in cardiac failure.

Dr. Vivek Jawali, Chief Cardio Thoracic Surgeon, Wockhardt Hospitals said, “On further examination it was found that the child had a heavy heart and was suffering from rheumatic heart disease (a condition in which permanent damage to heart valves is caused by rheumatic fever), with severe leakage of her heart valves – mitral and tricuspid valve (a valve located between the right atrium and the right ventricle). The leakage had caused stretching of the heart and irregular heart rhythm called Atrial Fibrillation (AFib) which was primarily contributing to her heart failure. Her condition was very critical and immediate surgery was the only option to save the child.” Abigail had to undergo a complex and prolonged surgery which involved replacement of her mitral valve, repairing of tricuspid valves and a complicated maze operation to correct her heart rhythm.

The surgery was successfully performed and the heart was contracted to a great extent. Abigail was no longer suffering from breathlessness and body swelling and her heart was strongly beating. “The child can now live a robust life adds DR. Jawali”. Abigail was discharged from the hospital within a week’s time post her surgery.

Atrial fibrillation is a condition where the speed or rhythm of the heart beat is affected due to a disorder in the hearts electrical impulses. The heart may beat too fast or too slow or it may vary in pace as the hearts upper and lower chambers beat out of sequence.

About Doctor Vivek Jawali:Dr.Vivek Jawali is the pioneer of minimally invasive cardiac surgery in India. Dr Jawali performed India's first minimally invasive bypass surgery and also performed India's first awake bypass surgery on a fully conscious patient without general anesthesia or ventilator, using the technique of continuous high thoracic epidural analgesia.

Dr Jawali performed the world's first awake open heart surgery, which involved an aortic valve replacement with a triple bypass on a 74-year-old patient. He has many indexed publications and the world's highest experience on this procedure. Click here To know more about Dr Vivel Jawali and to schedule and appointment with him,or email us at enquiries@wockhardthospitals.net to schedule and appointment with Dr Jawali

Mumbai, April 11, 2009: The liver unit team at Wockhardt Hospitals performed a life saving liver resection on an eighteen month old baby giving her a fresh lease of life. The team led by Dr. S K Mathur, Senior Consultant Surgeon, HPB Surgery & Liver Transplantation; Wockhardt Hospitals successfully completed the four hour surgery on this little baby without any complications.

The one-and-a-half year old baby a native of Orissa was diagnosed with hepatoblastoma, a rare cancerous tumour that originates in the liver. To worsen matters, it was detected at a rather locally advanced stage complicating matters for the ailing child. After undergoing chemotherapy at another Mumbai hospital she was to Wockhardt Hospitals for further intervention.

“The chemotherapy that Sumana had taken served to downsize the tumour in her liver to make it more resectable.” says Dr S K Mathur, Senior Consultant Surgeon, HPB Surgery & Liver Transplantation, Wockhardt Hospitals. “But it was the late detection that had worsened Sumana’s case. Cases of liver tumors in such young children are very rare almost one in a million. Managing such a small baby for a major liver resection was quite a difficult task and such surgeries are not commonly done on them.”

If eighteen-month old Sumana could just spell it out, she would have agreed heartedly and thanked Dr S K Mathur and Dr. Mahesh Goel and Wockhardt Hospitals for giving her a new life.

Dr. Mahesh Goel, Consultant Onco Surgeon at Wockhardt Hospitals said “This is a rare tumor potentially curable if treated at the right time and requires highly technical skill set to perform such a surgery. The challenge lies in removing the diseased part of the live safely in such a small child without any complication, no loss of blood and with adequate margin of liver to achieve cure.”

Dr. Mathur also added, “Sumana stayed in the ICU for one day, oral feeds started on the first day and she was discharged on the fifth day. The cause of her cancerous liver tumour could probably have been genetic. But it is a potentially curable cancer in a child, if it is treated in the early stages. During surgery we had to take care to prevent excessive blood loss and hypothermia (abnormally low body temperature. If Sumana’s case had gone untreated, she would probably not have survived for more than six months.”

Dr. Sangeeta Shetty, Consultant Anesthetist, Wockhardt Hospitals said, “The hospital provides technical backup during surgery of such a young patient. Intra operative care is taken during anesthetic management of such a small baby which includes maintaining temperature, physiological status, intravenous fluid and ensuring this is continued in the post operative period.”

Also present at the occasion Dr. Ravindra Karanjekar, Associate VP, Wockhardt Hospitals Mumbai said, “Wockhardt hospitals Mulund has developed expertise in Hepato billiary Surgeries including Liver transplant. With the help of Harvard International we have set up a well developed Transplant program in the country and have successfully conducted few liver transplants in the city. Such complex surgeries are not possible without highly skilled surgeons like Dr. Mathur & Dr. Goyal and require a great team work of anesthetists, nurses & other paramedical staff. Intensivists also play a vital role in such surgeries. Surgeries as such are very critical & Wockhardt Hospital is always on the forefront to bring in newer medical services to western region of the country. Our motto is save lives at any cost!”


About Hepatoblastoma

Hepatoblastoma is a very rare cancerous tumour that originates in the liver, which is one of the largest organs in the body. The primary functions of the liver include filtering and storing blood. The liver consists of left and right lobes, and it is commonly seen that most hepatoblastoma tumors generally occur in the right lobe. This disease primarily affects children from infancy to about five years of age. Most cases show up during the first 18 months of life. Hepatoblastoma cancer cells are known to metastasize or spread to other areas of the body. The most common sites of such metastasis are the lungs, into the abdomen, and in some rare cases to the central nervous system, bone and bone marrow.


About Department of Gastro-intestinal & HPB Surgery Wockhardt Hospitals:

They New York Times yesterday published an article on Medical Tourism outlining the benefits of medical tourism specially in times of increasing depressing economic conditions.

The article talks about an American executive working for Bank of America chose to go to Costa Rica for his double hernia operation rather than going to a local hospital in Columbia
Going Abroad to Find Affordable Health Care - NYTimes.com

With over 85,000 Americans choose to travel abroad for medical procedures each year, according to a recent report by the consulting firm McKinsey & Company.

Most American patients or medical travelers which they are mostly known as , Treatment includes dental implants, hip and knee replacements, heart valve replacements and bypass surgery. The cost of surgery performed overseas can be as little as 20 percent of the price of the same procedure in the United States, according to a recent report by the American Medical Association.

While the Nytimes reports accepts that the bulk of medical tourism candidates are uninsured and underinsured people paying their own bills and looking for low-cost alternatives to American care. Most Medical tourism advocates and Americans who have actually been to countries like India argue that the quality of care overseas is often equal to or better than that in the United States. Many countries have high success rates, American-trained English-speaking doctors and the newest facilities, often built specifically to attract foreign patients.

While this is not the first time that the mainstream US media has started to cover medical tourism in a big way,what would be interesting if this Medical Tourism Growth has any affect on the Obama's proposed rehauling of the American Health care system While it is clear that outsourcing has been one of the issues that the Democrats has taken on a very tough stand on, Medical Outsourcing of Health is something that is independent of Government Regulation or Idealogy. As long as Hospitals in the Developing countries provides quality at competitive costs medical Tourism will continue to grow..

The American Medical Association, has issued guidelines on medical travel, which ymou can check here issued guidelines on medical tourism . (They’re available on the Web at tinyurl.com/cpklcw.)

Please contact the Wockhardt Health Insurance Helpdesk ( for Bangalore and Mumbai).The Wockhardt help desk would validate the identity of the patient prior to giving a request form of the concerned TPA /insurance Company

Part A : to be filleld by the insured /patient with assistance from the helpdesk
Part B : To be filleld by the treating doctor at the hospital in detail
PartC : To be filled up by Wockhardt Hospitals

• The request will be submitted to the concerned TPA,the turnaround time for the authorization is approximately 6-24 hours.

• The TPA will send an authority or a rejection latter as the case may be ,directly to the hospital and the printout of the letter will be available at the helpdesk.

Authority letter are valid only for the period of Hospitalization sought as per request.Please inform the help desk if there is any change in these dates in case of planned hospitalization.

Final Discharge/Billing Turnouround Time:

The final billing clearance from the TPA could take atleasy 4 hours from the time your consulting doctor discharge .

Circumstances under which a request for cashless hospitalization can be rejected

Please keep in mind that the rejection of the request for pre-authorization is only denial of cashless service and is no way to be treated as a denial of treatment.The insured retains the right to get treated and submit the bills to the TPA for subsequent reimbursements.

Nobody wanted to treat a 12 year old girl with a congenital cardiac defect of criss-crossed ventricles and arteries. Medication could only do much and a temporary fix of the valves would only buy time.However our clinical team at Wockhardt Hospitals wanted more for that girl,we wanted to give back her life.It took a whole year of tests and scans and high risk surgeries to re arrange the girls heart; but in the end we challenged the odds and emerged successful.

A 13-year-old girl from Coorg went through a series of surgeries to correct the wrong positioning of ventricles and arteries in her heart. Congenital cardiac defects of this nature, called congenitally corrected transposition of the great arteries, affects not more than one per cent of children born with heart problems. She also had situs inversus, which means all her organs are positioned on the opposite side, including the heart.

In the latest and the most complicated surgery so far, this second child of a farmer couple underwent the double switch operation after left ventricular ‘retraining’ at Wockhardt Hospitals. The pumping chambers and the great arteries, both are inter-changed. That has set right the anomalies in the circulation in her body.The left-sided organs are in the right and vice versa. Her heart is on the right side.” In such patients, the risks are doubled. The heart may start failing as it cannot cope with the body’s requirement of blood circulation with swapped ventricles. Or the heart could develop blocks as the electrical systems of the heart are abnormal. Click here to know more .

However at Wockhardt Hospitals, we dont merely save lives.. we help create and give meaning to India's new generation.

To know more more our pediatric cardiac surgery department and Cardiac Super Specialty Services visit our website at http://www.wockhardthospitals.net/

This was a first of its kind unique medical breakthrough which the Doctors at Wockhardt Hospitals found themselves to be a part of.The Pediatric Cardiac team at Wockhardt Hospitals, Mumbai at Mulund performed a life saving surgery on a 4 hour old baby gifting a life and in the process creating a new heart.

Pediatric Cardiac Consultants at Wockhardt Hospital have successfully performed a critical 2-hour beating heart surgery to allow the flow of blood from the baby’s heart to her lungs, thereby enabling the child to breathe normal. This life threatening, rare cardiac complication in neonates is called Pulmonary Atresia, that requires to be addressed in a critical window period of just a few hours of the baby’s birth, was accomplished in the state-of-the-art dedicated pediatric cardiac set up of the hospital.

A few minutes after her birth out of a planned caesarian section in a private city hospital the baby was shifted to Wockhardt Hospitals at Mulund .Within four hours of her birth, the baby was wheeled in for a beating heart BT Shunt procedure wherein a synthetic tube (shunt) was inserted to connect a new artery the sub clavian artery -- to the pulmonary artery. The sub clavian artery supplies blood to the arms but is now redirected to share supply to the arms and the lungs.

The child suffered from a rare congenital disorder called 'Pulmonary Atresia" where the the pulmonary valve of the heart which controls blood to the lungs was not developed and no blood was reaching the lungs. The child, however survived for a few critical hours due to ductus arteriosus, a valve that is meant for its fetal existence only. This valve shuts close naturally after birth and the corrective surgery was required within this window.

Pulmonary atresia is a congenital malformation of the pulmonary valve in which the valve orifice fails to develop. The valve is completely closed thereby obstructing the outflow of blood from the heart to the lungs.The only source of pulmonary blood flow is a patent ductus arteriosus. Due to this, the newborn baby is blue in color and pulmonary atresia can usually be diagnosed within hours or minutes after birth.

Foetal Echocardiography is used to diagnose heart defects before a child is born. The diagnosis done through foetal echocardiography helps in treating the heart defect in the child at an early stage especially when many times some interventions needs to be done immediately after the birth. Since foetal echocardiography was done in this case the defect was identified and immediately after her birth the baby was brought to Wockhardt Hospitals for treatment.”

In India, over 2.5 million children are born with heart defects every year and many lives are lost due to lack of proper infrastructure, awareness, and poor planning at time of birth. Some 3 per cent of these cases are of those born with Pulmonary Atresia. Timely detection and early treatment can not only save a child but also help him lead a normal and healthy life.

For more information and scheduling appointments with Doctors at Wockhardt Hospitals write into enquiries@wockhardthospitals.net