6 Padma awards for Delhi doctors

Six city doctors were awarded the prestigious Padma Awards on the eve of Republic Day on Monday.

Six city doctors were awarded the prestigious Padma Awards on the eve of Republic Day on Monday.

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Sixteen doctors from across the country have been nominated for the awards, excluding a Padma Vibhushan for Dr Prathap Reddy, chairman of the Apollo Group that runs Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, for exceptional service in trade and industry.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s heart surgeon Dr Ramakant Panda from Mumbai’s Asian Heart Institute was awarded the Padma Bhushan for his successful ‘re-do’ bypass surgery on the PM exactly a year ago at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences.

New York-based orthopaedic surgeon Dr Chitranjan Singh Ranawat was awarded the Padma Bhushan following the successful knee surgery of the then prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Dr S.P. Agarwal, secretary general of the Indian Red Cross Society, and ophthalmologic surgeon Dr Noshir Shroff of Shroff Eye Clinic were the two Delhi doctors to win the Padma Bhushan, three of which also went to doctors from Kerala and Karnataka.

“The call from the home ministry on Monday morning made all our (Indian Red Cross Society’s) humanitarian work worthwhile,” said Dr Agarwal, a neurosurgeon who as India’s longest serving director general of health services,

“The award is for reaching out for those who need help the most.”

The Padma Shri went to four doctors in Delhi — liver transplant surgeon Dr A.S. Soin and nephrologist Dr Anil K. Bhalla from Sir Gangaram Hospital, Moolchand Medicity’s cardiologist Dr K.K. Aggarwal, and sports medicine expert Dr Laxmi Chand Gupta for the Padma Shri.

Dr Soin has conducted over 400 successful liver transplants, the highest in India, while Dr Bhalla is among the pioneers of peritoneal dialysis, a home-based treatment for people with kidney failure. Cadiologist Dr Aggarwal is the dean of the board of medical education at Moolchand Medcity.

Other names from the field of medicine from across the country include Karnataka’s Dr Belle Monappa Hegde (former V-C, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Karnataka), ayurveda practitioner E.T. Narayanan Mooss (Kerala), Dr B. Ramana Rao (Karnataka), Prof Kodaganur S. Gopinath (Karnataka), Dr Philip Augustine (Kerala), Dr Rabindra Narain Singh (Bihar) and Dr Vikas Mahatme (Maharashtra).