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| Sunday, 19 May 2002 |
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Open heart surgery at Nawaloka notches 3500 mark Around 3500 cardiac surgery cases, mostly open heart surgery have been performed at the cardiac surgery unit at the Nawaloka Hospital from the inception of the cardiac unit in 1994, Nawaloka Hospital's Chairman Jayantha Dharmadasa said while addressing a media conference last week. He said the unit, set up to British standards has a team of highly skilled doctors and staff who work round the clock to provide best care to patients. Asked as to why open heart surgeries cost more, Dharmadasa said that some equipment used in open heart surgery could not be used for another one and therefore had to be discarded to prevent infection. The imported equipment is expensive. However, coronary artery bypass surgery at the Nawaloka Hospital would cost around Rs 275,000, despite escalating costs. Around 70-80 coronary artery bypass surgeries are being performed every month, he said. Asked whether journalists who have to undergo cardiac bypass surgery would be given concessions at the Nawaloka Hospital like that of artist's belonging to the Artists guild, Dharmadasa said he would consider the proposal if representations were made through a journalist forum. Nawaloka Hospital's Managing Director, Professor Lal Chandrasena said that the 3500 open heart surgeries performed during the past eight years have been a success. The success rate was around 98 percent, he said. Nawaloka Hospital's Resident Consultant Cardiac Surgeon, Dr. V. Krishna Prasad said that diabetic and other factors finally lead to heart disease and patients consumption of alcohol have to be limited to a few milligrams as prescribed by a physician. The surgery unit was set at a cost of Rs 800 million, the first unit in Sri Lanka to do "Beating Heart CABG" and the use of "Octopus", new advances in CABG surgery. The cardiac unit has done more than 130 beating heart CABGS. Others who officiated at the conference was Dr. H. D. Waikar. |
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