A team of cardio-thoracic experts at the Government General Hospital have performed a rare surgery on a 30-year-old woman who had congenital heart disease.
What is rare in the surgery is that the patient was awake throughout the operation and felt no pain. The surgery was done by administering 'spinal epidural anaesthesia' instead of the usual general anaesthesia.
Termed as 'awake open heart surgery', the entire procedure for closing the 'atrial septal defect' was conducted on Shanti, a resident of Gudiyatham in Vellore district, by a team of doctors headed by Dr Harshavardhan, Head of the Department of Cardiology at the hospital.
According to Dr S Visvakumar, who was part of the surgery team, the patient was fully conscious during the procedure and experienced no pain. "This surgery is cost-effective as it involved less hospital stay and less morbidity".
Shanti, a farm labourer's wife and mother of two children, was suffering from severe breathing problems and had been diagnosed with congenital heart disease, having a hole in between the two atriums.