Free heart surgeries of poor children: Fortis

The Fortis Hospital in Mulund suburb of Mumbai has undertaken an initiative to perform free cardiac surgeries for poor children with heart ailments.

A city where over 3,500 babies are born with heart ailments every year, the Fortis Child Heart Mission has planned an initiative to reach out to a large number of poor families with children needing heart surgeries and other treatments, hospital's chief paediatric cardiac surgeon Dr Vijay Agrawal told reporters here yesterday.

Under the initiative, the doctors at Fortis Mulund plan to carry out free surgeries on poor children and will also organise a free paediatric cardiac check-up camp for children on February 14.

An awareness campaign is being held in cities like Aurangabad, Nasik, Raigad, Pune and Kolhapur for the local population to make use of the free treatment facility the mission provides.

The reported incidence of congenital heart disease (CHD) worldwide is about 8-10 per 1,000 live births. The burden of congenital heart disease in India is therefore enormous since we have a very high birth rate. As we have no community based data for accurately recording live births, it is difficult to gauge the prevalence of CHD in India, Dr Agarwal said.

Nearly 1,80,000 children are born each year with CHD. Of these 60,000 to 90,000 suffer from critical heart disease and need timely intervention to ensure survival. Due to general lack of awareness, approximately 10 per cent of infant mortality in India can be accounted for CHD alone, he said.

The treatment of babies with heart ailments requires special equipment and expertise, which unfortunately is in acute shortage in India. As a result, out of roughly 1.2 lakh children born with heart defects in India, only 30 per cent are diagnosed on time and treated every year.

Lack of awareness, funds and hospital facilities are the reason for majority of such children not surviving beyond the age of four, he lamented.