Heart mended, Baby Hindustan now heads home

Two weeks after HT highlighted Seema and Dutta Palkar’s desperate plea to save their infant who was born with a rare heart defect, the Karjat couple’s 18-day-old son was discharged from hospital on Tuesday and headed home.

Two weeks after HT highlighted Seema and Dutta Palkar’s desperate plea to save their infant who was born with a rare heart defect, the Karjat couple’s 18-day-old son was discharged from hospital on Tuesday and headed home.

HT Image

The infant underwent a seven-hour open-heart surgery on June 21 at Kokilaben Dhiru-bhai Ambani Hospital, which waived the cost of the surgery. Overwhelmed by the help that poured in after the HT news report, the couple has named their son, Hindustan. “My son’s life has been saved by the newspaper,” said Dutta, who works in a cloth shop in Karjat.

The blood vessels supplying blood to and from Hindustan’s heart were wrongly connected, leading to a shortage of oxygen in the blood.