Lanka Hospitals goes for keyhole surgery

Heart-lung transplant surgery and minimally invasive (keyhole) cardiac surgery is now performed at Lanka Hospitals. New theatres have been built at the Heart Centre and equipped with state-of-the-art equipment to perform the surgery. Since Lanka Hospitals obtains international accreditation from JCI, the world's leading certifing body for health care organisations, international patients can undergo their heart surgeries rest assured that the highest international standards are maintained.

Chief Resident Consultant Cardiothoracic Surgeon at Lanka Hospitals, Dr. G. Gandhiji said, "Minimally invasive keyhole surgery is a new concept which is practised in other developed countries and can be carried out without compromising quality or safety of the operation.

Minimally invasive heart surgery, which causes less pain, allows patients to recover much faster and carry on their day-to-day lives unlike open heart surgery. Minimally invasive surgery leaves only a minor scar which is cosmetically more appealing and are preferred by many patients."

Heart-lung transplants are a rewarding operation which is not practised in Sri Lanka.

The operation is carried out on patients with end stage heart failure whose lifespan is only a few months. By offering heart transplants, patients who have no hope at all can be given a new lease of life. The Lanka Hospitals Heart Centre is organising the logistics to perform these operations.

CEO, Lanka Hospitals, Lakith Peiris said, "At the Lanka Hospitals Heart Centre we pledge to offer the highest standards of clinical excellence at reasonable cost. No other hospital in Sri Lanka has the facilities offered by our Heart Centre which is the evidenced by the fact that this is the only hospital in which all cardiologists and cardiac surgeons practice."

Dr. Gandhiji qualified from the University of Peradeniya and subsequently obtained his postgraduate degree.

He underwent higher heart surgical training at the Wellington Public Hospital in New Zealand and the Children's Heart Hospital in Auckland.

Since his return to Sri Lanka he worked at the General Hospital in Kandy conducting heart and thoracic operations, before joining Lanka Hospitals. While at the Kandy General Hospital he conducted the country's first heart surgery without using general anesthesia (awake heart surgery).

Later Dr. Gandhiji went to Sydney, Australia to complete training in heart-lung transplants. It is this knowledge that he hopes to practise at the Heart Centre at Lanka Hospitals.

Lanka Hospitals hopes to perform awake, non-incubated heart surgery (where the patient is not under general anesthesia).

The surgeries are performed under thoracic epidural anaesthesia (anaesthesia administered to the spine to numb only the required area). Dr. Gandhiji is the only Sri Lankan surgeon to have performed this operation.